The New Familiar
by The Uncreative
Summary: Time for the springtime familiar summoning festival. Who will Louise summon this time?
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Once more, from the top!**

Well, there's definitely something to be said about investigating the strange, floating, inter dimensional portal that just appears right in front of you one day. DON'T DO IT. Well, don't do it unless you know exactly what you're getting yourself into. Take me for example. I saw the green portal, I just had to investigate it, consequences be damned! I should have at least grabbed some supplies or something just in case. I mean all I had when the portal appeared was the clothes on my back, namely my sneakers, jeans, my t-shirt and my white hooded jacket. That's not exactly apocalypse levels of preparedness, which is definitely what you should be expecting when a portal appears out of nowhere.

Anyway, like I said, the portal just appeared out of nowhere in my room, and I stupidly decided to investigate it. I mean, after all, what harm could possibly come forth from an ominous looking portal that could possibly lead to what could very well be hell? So I poked it a few times and then it ate me. Right. What was that about what could possibly happen?

Well if the portal did lead to hell, then hell sure was black. All I could see was whatever the light from the portal illuminated.

"I should have brought a flashlight or something," I mutter to myself.

Then the portal shut behind me, leaving me in pitch black conditions in an unfamiliar dimension. This may not have been the greatest idea I've ever come up with. Luckily for me, at that moment I heard a voice shout out from somewhere in the darkness.

"Come forth my Familiar spirt!" The voice yelled. It was definitely a female voice, but I couldn't tell where it was coming from.

Then, as if someone suddenly hit the light switch, the darkness just kind of disappeared and I was lying face down in some kind of grassy field that was covered in smoke. I could hear all sorts of chatter, but I couldn't see anyone past the thick layer of smoke that was kind of starting to fill my lungs. _Thank god I'm not an asthmatic_, I think to myself as I roll over and sit up.

Eventually the smoke clears, and I can get a good look at the crowd that's in attendance. I must have walked in on some big fancy event or something, because there was at least 100 people standing around. They all looked like they couldn't have been any older then 17, 18 at the very most. Everyone looks at me for about a minute, then they all start laughing like I'm the most hilarious thing they've ever seen. _I don't get it. Is the sight of a 16 year old with short black hair and brown eyes sitting in the middle of a grassy plain really such an amusing sight? _I wonder to myself in an oddly descriptive thought process.

"The zero Louise summoned a commoner!" They all cry out in between fits of laughter.

"Shut up! It's just a mistake!" I hear someone cry out. In a sudden flash, I realize that the voice is the same one that spoke when I was in that weird darkness world.

I look to see who said that, and I see a girl with pink hair and she seemed very angry. She looked around 12 or 13, but was probably around the same age as everyone here, 16 or 17 years old. Judging by the fact that this pink haired girl looks absolutely pissed, I'd say she's probably the one they're all mocking, which would make her Louise.

Louise turns to some old guy and starts arguing with him, but I don't really pay attention. I take this moment to look around and take in the scenery. It looks like I'm in the courtyard of some kind of castle judging by the giant towers around. _How the hell did I get here?_ Is my first question to myself before I remember the portal that ate me. _Oh yeah. Investigating that was kind of stupid. How the hell did that thing take me here? Magic. Yeah, that's it. Let's go with that while I search for the actual and more plausible reason._

Eventually Louise stops arguing with the old guy and turns to me with a blush on her face.

"Who are you?" She asks in a tone as cold as steel.

"Me? My name's Joshua Springfield," I tell her.

I take that moment to size her up. If I had to take one word to describe Louise, it would probably be something along the lines of "cute." Actually, strike that, I'd use two words, "very cute." I don't know, she just seemed to emanate various levels of moe, and things like that. Maybe it was the pink hair. I always did find oddly colored hair, especially pink, really attractive for one reason or another.

Louise sighs. "Well you better consider yourself luck, you commoner."

"Commoner? What?" She ignores me.

Louise closes her eyes and begins waving what looks like a wand around in the air.

"My name is Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière. Bless this humble being and make him my familiar," She says while touching the wand to my forehead.

"That's a pretty long name," I remark. "And what's this about a fam-"

I'm cut off when Louise kneels down and kisses me right on the lips. _What the hell?_

She separates and stands up. "It's done," she says.

Before I can ask what she means by that, a burning pain hits my left hand. I grab my left hand and roll around on the ground, doing my best to suppress a scream of absolute agony.

"I am in great pain right now!" I didn't do a good job.

"Just shut up," Louise tells me. "It's only the familiar runes being carved in."

Eventually the pain subsides and I look at my left hand and, sure enough, there's some type of foreign writing on my left hand.

_Okay, I don't remember getting a tattoo, and I'm pretty sure even if I ever did get one it wouldn't be in some weird unintelligible scribbles, which leaves only one option: I got way more drunk then I should have last night and this is some of my friends playing a prank on me. Except I don't drink. Which leaves me with only one other option: Aliens... who don't usually abduct people just to kiss them and cause some weird writing to spontaneously appear on their hand, which leaves me with only one option: ... I don't know, I'll figure it out as I go along._

The old guy congratulates Louise on succeeding with the spell on her first try then dismisses the entire group, all of whom then proceed to float away, prompting my jaw to drop.

"What the hell? Those people just flew away!" I cry out. "That's freaking awesome!"

Louise, who had stayed behind, turns and glares at me. "Of course they're flying! How else would mages get around?" _Jetpacks?_

I blink. "Mages? As in, people who use magic?"

"Of course! Why else would we be at the Tristain Academy of magic?" Louise asks me in an annoyed tone.

"Come again? Academy of Magic? You're screwing with me, right?"

Loiuse sighs in frustration then hangs her head. "Why did my familiar have to be some backwoods commoner who acts like they've never seen magic before?" She asks while shaking her head sadly.

My head tilts to the side. "I'm afraid I don't follow. You're telling me that I'm supposed to be your familiar? As in, you're a mage, and I'm your familiar. You're trying to convince me that that's what is currently happening right now."

Louise glares at me again and looks like she's ready to hit me. "Of course! Are you stupid or something?"

"Not as far as I'm aware."

Louise huffs in anger and walks off. I briefly entertain the thought that this is a dream, but I disregard that notion immediately. I've seen Inception, you're never aware you're in a dream until an outside force draws your attention to it, and then everyone starts acting weird and violent, so that's out of the question.

Seeing no other choice in the matter, I follow Louise back to her room. Let's hope this all goes well.

***Scene Break***

So it was currently around nighttime, and the bright blue and pink moons were currently out and illuminating the night. Key words being moons. Plural. As in, there were two of them. Earth does not have two moons, and even if it did, they never looked bright blue and pink, as awesome as that would be. This fact brought me to my brilliant deduction: I was not on Earth, and I was instead on a planet where instead of technology, humans developed magic instead. A fair trade off, in my opinion. I decided I should probably bring this up with Louise, which prompted the following conversation.

"You seriously expect me to believe such a ridiculous story?" She asked me angrily.

"Honestly? No, I didn't," I tell her. "Whether or not you believe it doesn't make it any less true.

"And where's your proof?" she asks me as she flops down on her bed. "Do you expect me to believe such a lie without any proof to support it?"

"Right, of course I have proof. After all, it's common knowledge on Earth that green portals take you to another world, so of course I'd know the bring my laptop or camera or something to prove my claim," I say.

"So you don't have your proof?" Louise asks calmly.

"Well, I had so much time to prepare," I hope sarcasm isn't a foreign concept in this world.

"Then as far as I'm concerned, you're lying, and as your master, I have every right to punish you," Louise tells me.

I raise an eyebrow. "Punish? Master? I don't know, that sounds oddly S&M."

Now it's her turn to look at me with a curious expression. "What's S&M?"

I immediately blush a deep shade of red. "Let's not go into that. Anyway, so what exactly is this whole familiar thing about? I know the term, but what exactly is my job, per se?" I ask, eager to get away from the previous topic as fast as possible.

"Well a familiar isn't just some job you can pick up off of the streets. A familiar can only be summoned using the summoning spell, and the summoning spell only brings forth whatever creature is most compatible with it's master," at that statement Louise sighs. "Why did it have to be someone like you? I wanted a dragon. I would have been fine with even a griffon. Anything but a commoner!"

_Okay, dragons and griffons exist, even more proof that I'm not on earth anymore. That's always nice to know._

"So, if it summons the being most suited to the summoner, why me? I'm not exactly a god among beasts or anything," I ask.

Louise completely ignores me and continues with her speech. "Most importantly, a familiar exists solely to protect it's master! And since by your own admission you probably couldn't fight off a crow-"

"I could totally beat a crow! If I had a gun, and the crow had it's wings clipped or tied together so it couldn't fly away," I tell her.

Louise goes to a corner of the room, picks somethings up and tosses them at me. Upon closer inspection, they appear to be various clothes and undergarments.

"Since you cannot fulfill the basic needs of a familiar, I will have you take care of the chores like laundry," Louise tells me with a completely straight face.

I stare at her blankly. "You're telling me that you kidnap me from my home, trap me in another world with possibly no way back, and you're making me you butler?"

She nods. "That's what a familiar is for."

Then she goes over to her closet and starts unbuttoning her shirt, and I feel my face blush a nice shade of red again.

"Um... I know I'm not really in a place to complain for various reasons, but what are you doing?" I ask.

She looks at me over her shoulder. "Isn't it obvious? It's late so I'm changing into my night clothes," She tells me as she shrugs off her shirt.

"Well at least do it where I can't see you! At least have some shame," That last part was said pretty much under my breath. Again, I know I probably shouldn't be complaining, most people would die if a girl as cute as Louise started undressing in front of them, but I don't do good in these situations. I could feel the awkward levels rising to dangerous levels.

"What's your problem?" Louise asks me as she drops her skirt, causing me to avert my gaze even further. "You're a familiar. You're on the same level as a tree, or a dog."

Great, now she's comparing me to a dog. Next she'll be treating me like one as well

"Do I get to sleep on the floor as well?" I ask. "We have to complete the package somehow."

"Well since you asked so nicely, yes, you do get to sleep on the floor," Louise says in a tone that implies I would be sleeping on the floor no matter what I said.

I sigh in defeat and curl up on the floor next to the bed, when I see something fall in front of me. Closer inspection reveals that it's Louise's panties. Wha-

"Make sure you wash those too," I hear Louise call out from the bed.

I'm at a complete loss for words, so I decide to check the tally for the day. Summoned to another world and forced into servitude? Check. Magic exists in this world instead of technology? Check Forced to wash my "master's" laundry, including her underwear? Also check. Giving the current statistics, I'm either the luckiest man in the universe, or screwed to the point where words do not exist to properly explain it. _Meh, I'll think about it tomorrow. I'm tired._

***Scene Break***

So when I woke up I was asleep on the floor next to the bed, and Louise was asleep in the bed, providing even more evidence that I wasn't dreaming. Not the best news I've ever woken up to. Well, time to start my Familiar duties!

"Hey, master! Time to wake up!" I yell as I pull the covers off of Louise.

She drowsily sits up and looks at me. "Who're you?" She asks in a voice that clearly shows she hasn't woken up yet.

"Your father, now wake up, we're going to find you a husband," I remark in my best attempt at a deadpan voice. I personally don't think it works well.

That wakes Louise up, and she bolts upright and her eyes fly open. "F-father! I'm not ready!"

I laugh. "Sorry, I was just messing with you. It's just me, Joshua."

She glares at me, her annoyance obvious. "Oh, the familiar I summoned."

I smile and nod. "Damn straight! Now get up. You have classes to get ready for, and I have laundry to do."

She stretches and swings her legs over the side of the bed. "At least you're enthusiastic. Get me my clothes and dress me."

"Did you never learn to dress yourself, or is that also part of the job description?"

"A noble will never dress themselves when a servant is present," Louise tells me in a very authoritative voice.

I sigh in defeat. I probably should try and put up more of a fight, but she's a mage, and I shudder to think of what type of punishment she could conjure up with whatever magic she might have access too.

"Fine, but can you at least put on your underwear by yourself? Please? I don't feel comfortable putting your panties on for you. I mean, after all... You know, never mind me. I'm just going to shut up now," I say.

"I appreciate that," I quick glance shows that Louise does appear to have a blush on her face. Success! Louise has gained at least a little bit of shame!

I head over to the closet and grab a set of underwear for Louise. I toss them over my shoulder and they land on the bed. While Louise does that, I start fishing around for her uniform, which is comprised of a black skirt, a white button up shirt, stockings and... Wow, I feel oddly perverted talking about what I have to dress Louise up in. Can we skip this part?

Anyway, after I got Louise ready, she went to class and I hung around in the courtyard to start doing the laundry and scope out some of the other familiars, one of which I was currently involved in a staring contest with. It was this sort of floating tentacled eyeball thing, and it really kind of scared me.

"... I give up. What the hell are you?" I ask the eyeball thing.

"That, my friend, is a bug bear," I hear someone say off to my right.

I turn in that direction and see a girl with black hair tied in two pig tails that come down to her shoulders. Or maybe they were twin tails. Is there a difference between the two? Anyway, she had her black hair tied in two tails coming out of the of the top of her head that reached down to her shoulders and she also had bright brownish-yellow eyes. She was wearing a black sleeveless dress that came down to about her knees, and one of those head band things that maids usually wear.

I turn away from her and look at the bugbear thing again. "Nope. I don't see it. Not a single part of the thing resembles a bear or a bug."

The girl walks up to me and looks at the bugbear as well. "Well, it's got those antenna, right? Don't bugs usually have those?"

"That's an antenna? I could have sworn that was a tentacle," I say more to myself then her.

She laughs. "Now that you mention it, I guess it could be a tentacle, I just work here, I don't get paid to know the anatomy of all the creatures here."

"You work here?" I ask. "What do you do?"

She bows and smiles at me. "My name's Emily. My friends call me Emi so I expect you to do the same. I'm the best maid this academy's ever had!"

"You're a maid?" I ask. "That isn't a very maid-like outfit."

"I'm aware, as is the rest of the staff. I used to wear one of the big, fancy maid outfits they have all the maids wear, but I hated it so one day I just came into work dressed like this, casual wear. They were upset sure, but like I told you, I'm the best maid they got. They wouldn't dare fire me, so they let me be," Emily tells me. "Anyway, aren't you that guy that Louise- sorry, Ms. Valliere, summoned?"

I nod. "Yep, I'm Joshua Springfield. Nice to meet you Emi. By the way, what do you mean you're the best maid here?"

"About 90% of everything related to the work force here, recipes, work ethic, attitude, was all done or handled by me at some point or another," Emily says while winking. "The reason we're known as the best batch of maids and kitchen officials in Halkegnia is all because of the reforms I made when I, unofficially of course, became head maid here."

"That's... pretty impressive," I tell her. "Anyway, I should finish up this laundry and head back to Louise's room."

"Before you do that, I have a question for you."

"And that would be?"

"You're Louise's familiar, right?"

"Right."

"So doesn't that mean you'll need to spend practically every minute of every day with each other for the rest of both of your lives?" Emily asks me.

I freeze in place as I realize what she just said. I am a slave for life with no way out. This... is going to suck.

"It was just a question. I mean, after all, Louise has been a bit of a hard one to tame. You're going to need to work hard if you want to get to that girl's heart," Emily tells me.

"What? Why would I want Louise's heart?"

Emily holds up her hands in surrender. "Hey, if I had to spend the rest of my life with someone, I'd at least like for the two of us to be on good terms, wouldn't you?"

"Those terms don't need to be romantic, you know," I tell her.

Emily shrugs. "You're probably right, but if what I've read in those books is correct, and they always are, no matter how much abuse goes on between two people, especially those who need to spend inordinate amounts of time with each other, a little bit of romance always lightens the mood a bit."

"What books talk about things like that?"

Emily looks away briefly. "Y-you know, romance novels and things like that."

Not wanting to continue this conversation, I said goodbye to Emily, finished the laundry and headed back to Louise's room. It might have been my imagination, but I think I heard Emily sigh in relief when I left. I'll have to press her on the details eventually. However on my back to Louise's room, I spied a conversation I can't help but listen in on.

This guy, I think his name was Guiche or something like that, was flirting with this other girl named Katie, and it was just plain hilarious. The guy kept spouting lines from a bad Hallmark card (further inspection reveals that Hallmark cards hold more credibility then Guiche), and Katie just kept eating it up. Eventually they started talking about soufflés and Katie promised to bake one for Guiche. It killed me, it really did. I had to leave quickly or I'd just burst out laughing, and I'd hate to ruin their little moment.

***Scene Break***

At my insistence, Louise let me attend one of her classes so I could learn a bit about this world and how it handles magic. I managed to pick up the basic gist of it, four elements, earth, water, wind, and fire with a lost fifth sadly not known as heart, and it all functioned based on a person's own willpower capacity. I even learned why people call Louise a zero all the time! Her explosions hurt.

Anyway, it had been a few days and was just taking a walk around the academy and taking in the sights and things like that. I saw that Guiche guy talking with a group of people, and I decided to see what they were saying. After all, the last conversation Guiche had with someone was the greatest thing I've ever heard, so this should be even better, right?

Since I'm probably the only person on the face of any earth who could possibly find those things entertaining, I won't bore you with the details. The gist of it was that the guys were trying to find out who Guiche was currently dating, but he wouldn't tell them because he's an asshole like that. Anyway, the conversation played itself out and I just listened in and tried to not burst out laughing at what everyone was saying. Eventually I noticed a small bottle filled with a suspicious purple liquid fall out of Guiche's pocket. _What the hell's that? I should probably let him know. After all, it would suck if it turns out to be poison and he tries to poison someone and reaches into his pocket only to find out it's not there. That would suck for him._

"Hey what's-your-name! I think something fell out of your pocket," I tell him as I pick up the bottle and show it to him.

Guiche throws a quick glance in my direction. "You must be mistaken. Nothing fell from my pockets."

"Yeah, nice try. I clearly saw this fall from your pockets," I tell him.

"Hey," begins one of the random guys near Guiche. "Isn't that some of Montmorency's perfume?"

"So you are dating Montmorency!" Says another.

My head tilts to the side. "Montmorency? Weren't you talking to some chick named Katie a day or two ago?"

Guiche's face contorts into something along the lines of a cross between "SHIT!" and "You damn idiot!"

Guiche opens his mouth to say something but before he can, I point at something behind him.

"Just a question, would that girl with the blonde hair happen to be this Montmorency person you're cheating on?" I ask.

He whirls around in a panic just in time for Montmorency to slap him senseless. She yelled something about it being "over" before slapping him one last time for good measure and storming off.

Guiche sighed. "It seems she does no understand the meaning of a rose's existence."

At that, I burst out laughing. "Right, most women love the fact that they're being cheated on. Women likes roses, not men who think they're roses."

Guiche stands up and glares at me. "Aren't you that commoner Louise summoned?"

I nod. "Yep. Joshua Springfield. Nice to meet you," I say as I offer a handshake. Guiche responds by slapping my hand away.

"Hey! Aren't nobles supposed to be paragons of manners? Or something like that?" I ask.

"You dare think I would have friendly chatter with someone of such a low class?" He replies back.

"Compared to most conversations I have this is actually pretty friendly."

Guiche doesn't seem to like my answer and points a rose at me. "Furthermore! What were you thinking? Because of your incompetence the reputation of two girls has been smeared!"

"Didn't you cause that by cheating? If anything I think your reputation is the one most likely to be smeared."

Guiche sighs in frustration. "Judging by your behavior, I assume you have no idea how to properly address nobles. As a result, I am willing to let you go if you apologize."

"Apologize for what? Ruining your plans to form your own harem? If anything you should be the one apologizing to those two girls," I tell him.

Guiche really seems to be getting upset now. "Since you refuse to apologize, I have no choice but to challenge you to a duel. If you don't wish to apologize, then come to Vestri Court."

Then he walks off.

"That went well," I say. "Anyone know where Vestri Court is?"

A few student point in one direction. I thank them and head off. I make about two steps before I'm stopped.

"What were you thinking familiar?" I hear a voice shout from behind me.

I turn around and come face to face with a VERY upset looking Louise. "Hey, he's the one who wanted to fight. Besides, he was cheating on two girls. Don't you think he deserves a bit of a beat down?"

Louise stares at me like she can't believe how calm I am about the situation. "Yes, but you can't win. A commoner like you has no chance against a noble."

I shrug. "I've been told things similar to that before. I'll burn that bridge when I come to it."

"Hey, Joshua!" I hear someone call off to my right.

Me and Louise turn towards the sound and see Emily walking up to us.

"We're starting to build a crowd here aren't we?" I mutter to myself.

"Joshua, what were you thinking?" Emily asks me. "Do you really think you can win this? Nobles are way out of your league. In both senses of the phrase," She says as she gives Louise a once over for some reason.

"Does everyone here really have such little faith in me? I'm not completely helpless you know. Besides, I already said yes. I really have no choice but to go fight," I say to both Louise and Emily.

"Of course you have a choice!" Louise yells at me. "You can choose to go apologize and stop this stupid duel!"

"But then I'm just running away. If I can help it, I'm never running away."

Emily sighs. "Okay. Since you're going through with this, let me give you some tips."

"Maid! How can you be encouraging this?" Louise yells at Emily.

"Oh, so you do want me to tell the rest of the staff what you told me about your familiar?" Emily says with a wry smile.

Louise blushes slightly and I feel confused.

"What'd she say?" I ask.

Emily throws a glance over to Louise, who returns a glare. Then there's silence for a minute.

"Fine. Do whatever you two want," Louise tells us. "But don't expect me to feel sorry for you when you die."

"Harsh," Emily observes. "So anyway, when you fight Guiche, he's probably going to 'fight' you by summoning his bronze golems."

"Do I at least get a weapon?"

"No."

"Isn't that cheating? What am I supposed to do, punch bronze to pieces? My knuckles aren't strong enough to deal with that."

"Exactly, which is why you need to convince Guiche to give you a sword," Emily tells me.

"Okay, now since we're already getting loads of tips, please tell me how I do that."

"Simple. Guiche is a show-off."

"That's kind of easy to see."

"Exactly, so play to that side of him," Emily tells me. "Convince him that he'd impress more people if he gave the commoner a chance to not die instantly."

"That sounds oddly easy."

"Exactly. Now go out there and don't die!"

Nice words of encouragement.

***Scene Break***

"Ah, you showed up," Guiche notices when I walk into Vestri Court.

"I still think this is a terrible idea," Louise says behind me.

"And yet you still showed up to support me," I reply.

"I showed up to try and make sure it doesn't end in your funeral!" Louise yells at me.

"Either way, you decided to show up," Guiche interrupts. "I will give you one last chance to back down. All you need to do is get down and apologize."

"But where's the fun in that?" I ask. "Considering the fact that people showed up, I feel we'd be giving everyone a disservice if we just stopped the duel right now. That and I'm not one to run away, so there's that too."

"So you will not back down?"

"Stupid question. If I didn't intend to fight, I wouldn't have shown up," I point out.

"Very well then."

Guiche waves his rose, and a single petal flies off. The petal lands, there's a small light, and then a bronze valkyrie rises from the ground. What do you know, Emily was right.

"My runic name-"

"Look, I don't care what you call yourself to impress people," I tell him. "All I know is that unless you give me a sword of some kind, this is going to be a completely one-sided battle."

"Are you admitting defeat?" Guiche asks.

"Were you even listening? I'm saying that unless you give me a sword, this isn't going to be a fight, it's you using me as a punching bag. Are you nobles really so high and mighty that you challenge people at a clear disadvantage to a duel? At least make the fight fair."

There, I've said my piece. Let's hope it worked.

"In the interest of shutting you up." _Bastard._ "I will give you a sword."

Guiche waves his rose again, and another petal flies off, and lands in front of me. This time, the light spawns what looks like a plain broadsword stuck in the ground. I would have liked something shinier, but you never get awesome equipment right off the bat. NPCs always see fit to give you the lowest tier item that could ever possibly be in your inventory, and you have to work and kill all sorts of things before you get enough money to buy anything remotely useful. That or a really long and tedious side quest. Either way, I probably shouldn't complain.

"Is that better for you?" Guiche asks in what I detect to be an attempt at sarcasm. It's pretty terrible.

"Much. Now we can all feel better knowing it's a fair fight," I say as I grab the sword.

As soon as I grab the sword, my left hand starts glowing but I only have about three seconds to ponder, because Guiche's golem moves to punch me in the face. I parry the golem's arm with my sword, step forward and stab the golem in the throat with my sword, severing the helmet from the rest of it's body. The head and the body fall to the ground before disintegrating and melting into the ground. That incident was over in around 3 seconds.

"Holy hell, did everyone else see that!" I ask the audience while a giant grin plasters itself across my face. "I didn't expect that to happen!"

"Pay attention!" Louise yells at me.

I turn around just in time to another golem, this time armed with a sword, about to separate my left arm from the rest of my body. I rotate so the blade is parallel with my body and only ends up cutting air, and maybe a few bits of hair from my bangs. I've been meaning to get those cut anyway, it looks stupid. I respond by cutting the golem's arm off, elbowing it in the face causing it to stagger backwards, then slicing it in half at the waist.

"I know this is a duel but that could have seriously hurt me!" I yell at Guiche, just now noticing that he has five other golems that seem ready to kill me.

Hey wait a minute, I just noticed something. Why is everything blue? Everything in my vision is blue, with some exceptions. The golems are highlighted in red, and Guiche is highlighted in yellow. And my left hand is still glowing! What's going on? I'll worry about this weird battle mode once I'm all done with this.

Instead of responding to my previous complaint, Guiche sends another golem, this time armed with an axe, charging at me. It tries to swipe at me with a horizontal slice, but I duck under it, slice off the knees of the golem causing it to fall to onto the ground. I stand back up and then stab the thing in the head while it's on the ground.

"Guiche, that could have killed me! Duel or not, isn't that a bit much?" Third golem tries a left diagonal dodge which I sidestep. "I mean, this is a bit harsh, isn't it?" I ask as I dodge another slice. "Shouldn't you be pulling your punches a bit?" I catch this golem's blade with my own, give a quick twirl of my blade to forcibly remove the sword from the golem's hand and send it much higher up in the air than I thought it would. Seriously, it went like 50 feet in the air! I take this opportunity to slice off the golem's head, arms and torso, causing it to disintegrate and dissolve into the ground.

"Seriously, we might need to stop this soon," I remark. "Something like this is bound to happen."

As I finish that statement I grab the sword that was just about to collide with the earth in my free right hand. I toss both swords, which go turning end over end and collided with the helmets of two of Guiche's remaining Valkyries, leaving one left.

"Damn, I didn't expect that right one to hit. Thank god for ambidexterity," I remark.

"B-but now you are without a weapon!" Guiche yells at me.

"Oh hey, my left hand stopped glowing," I observe. Weird, everything still seems blue. Maybe the two are unrelated?

"Joshua!" I hear someone, probably Louise, call out.

I get called back to reality upon hearing that and realize that Guiche's last valkyrie is approaching me, swinging it's sword wildly. I probably should have noticed that, shouldn't I?

The golem tries a horizontal slice. After all, it worked so well for it's friends. I jump up, land on the blade somehow, put my hands on the valkyrie's helmet and flip over the valkyrie landing behind it. It whirls around and tries a one handed slash at me with it's sword, but I catch it's arm with my hands, stopping it dead in it's tracks. Good thing too, because that would have cut off half of my head if it's path continued.

...

"SHIT that stings!" I yell as I let go and start rubbing my hands to start trying to get some feeling back in them. "Damn it Guiche, now you see why I wanted a sword for this freaking fight!"

"Joshua stop getting distracted!" Louise cries out again.

Good thing too, because that Golem was trying to vertically cut my head in half. I jump backwards in a half flip, plant my hands firmly on the ground, push off and complete the back flip. A move that has put about 11 feet between me and the golem, which now has it's sword implanted in the ground. Awesome! New record!

The golem dislodges it's weapon from the ground and start advancing towards me.

"Wait a minute..."

I turn and notice I'm right next to Guiche, who looks like he just saw the most terrifying thing in his life. I take this opportunity to punch him in the face so hard that he goes flying back a foot and then lands on the ground with a thud. Apparently you really need to keep your concentration when you're doing magic, because the second he hits the floor, the golem dissolves into the ground.

I walk up to him, kneel down and shake him a bit.

"Hey, you alright?" I ask. He doesn't respond. "Crap, I think I knocked him unconscious. When he wakes up would anyone mind telling him I'm sorry?"

Louise walks up to me, her mouth agape.

"J-Joshua, how did you do that?" she asks me.

"Well, my dad was a swordsman of sorts, so I picked up a few things from him, though I didn't know I could actually use a sword that well."

"And that last part when you didn't have a weapon at all?" Emily asks, apparently having shown up sometime during the fight.

"Oh, that part's easy. That was just some of my parkour practice coming into play. I never thought it'd be useful in a fight."

"Parkour?" Louise asks while tilting her head to the side. I wonder if she does that on purpose, or if it's a reflex.

"The act of getting from point A to point B in as little time as possible by climbing on or around all obstacles to keep your travel path in as close to a straight line as possible," I explain. "Or something like that. It's a great way to keep fit, and it's fun."

"Interesting," Emily notes. "Well, I think we're about done here. Let's go before the teacher find out and think of punishing us."

**Author Notes:**

Uncreative: Today we're trying something different. Normally my author notes are placed at the top of each chapter, but I feel they're better suited to be down here. Also, due to my own desire to talk to someone who isn't the audience during the author notes, this story we have a special guest. Please welcome OC, Ariana Evangeline Sakura.

Ariana: Hi all!

Uncreative: You're fine with me labeling you an OC?

Ariana: That's what I am, aren't I? For those who don't know who I am, go check out that guy's last story "The Crimson Familiar" for an explanation.

Uncreative: I appreciate the plug, but we're here to talk about this story, not my previous stories.

Ariana: You're right. This isn't "The Legendary Familiars!" You lied! Where's the story where I play a nice, sizable role?

Uncreative: ... On hiatus while I get this story out the door. Since this story is taking way longer then I intended, that story was in turn delayed. My apologies. Though in a way it worked out in the end.

Ariana: But let's not dwell on the past. I did some research into this particular timeline-

Uncreative: We're in a non-canon environment, you don't have to talk like that.

Ariana: Oh, that makes things so much easier! So I did a background check on you considering you're the equivalent of god and control the lives of those in this story, and I found something interesting. Josh and Emily happen to share the first names of people you know very well. Is this a sel-

Uncreative: NO. Never at any point will I ever write anything even resembling an SI story. I have my doubts that there are many universes and situations that require the help of someone in my position.

Ariana: Give me 30 minutes and I bet $50 I could find a universe that needs someone like that.

Uncreative: I appreciate the thought, but I'm fine. Anyway, the name Joshua Springfield came from a few factors. His last name was always Springfield, due to me having just started reading the Negima series again and liking the name. Joshua was meant to be a placeholder first name until I thought of something better, but it stuck. I couldn't think of anything that sounded better to me.

Ariana: I'll accept that. Now who's this Emily chick? Where's Siesta?

Uncreative: She's not in this story. I wanted to try something different and see how the story would be affected if Siesta wasn't present.

Ariana: Liar. You admitted to hating her in a previous author's note, did you not?

Uncreative: I don't hate her, she grew on me. The novel version, not the anime version whom I still hate just as much as before, but that's JC staff's fault.

Ariana: I get the feeling you're the person who'd blame the apocalypse on JC staff if given the opportunity. So any other author notes, considering this is the place for them?

Uncreative: Originally this was a complete rewrite of my first story "The Familiar Times."

Ariana: Thus explaining the fact that you are ripping off the light novels for the third time in a row.

Uncreative: In my defense-

Ariana: Nope. No defense for that. I take over from here, this is my story now. This idea behind this story originally spawned from a list of ideas this guy had for if he were to redo his story to make it something worth reading. However, the list of ideas grew until he said "Screw it, this is going to be it's own thing completely unrelated to either of my past stories." Thus, this story was written into existence. This should be interesting. Now here's my question which you must answer since I own this story now.

Uncreative: What might that be?

Ariana: Why did you not go with the standard author notes of your last story which got much more information out in less time, and instead went with a conversation with an imaginary character that is sure to annoy more people then it entertains?

Uncreative: ... We're done here. See you next week.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Theft of property**

Well, I think I can safely say that if things keep going the way they are, I just might get used to living here. I mean, I doubt there's anything I can do about it, and this world doesn't seem that bad. I mean, Louise can be a bit of... well I don't want to say she's a bitch because she's not that bad, but pretty damn close. Explosions hurt. Luckily through years of intense practice I have refined and perfected my ability to selectively remember things. I can simply forget whatever I don't want to remember! It's not quite a repression of memory's, because I think that implies some kind of traumatic event and my life has been pretty trauma free, but it's similar. I'm only vaguely aware of the amount of times Louise has exploded me! Sadly that tactic doesn't work when Louise doesn't let me eat.

Still, that's not all that bad. Water mages heal whippings and whenever I'm denied food I just head to the kitchen. After I kicked Guiche's ass, the kitchen staff, comprised of nothing but commoners, all took a liking to me. They were all perfectly fine with giving me some meals. Also I got to talk to Emily when I was there, and that's always fun. She seems to be "hinting" (with as little subtlety as possible) that I should get Louise in some kind of relationship, and I keep telling her that's not happening. I don't see how I could fall in love with someone who blows me up and treats me like dirt, and I definitely don't plan on making that person fall in love with me. I fear that if Louise were to fall in love with me, she might start exhibiting some yandere tendencies, and if there's one thing we don't need, it Louise going around exploding everyone who looks at me. Well... I guess Louise could be more tsundere then yandere, but I've yet to see a dere side to her, so for know let's assume she's yandere for now.

Anyway, going back to the kitchen, they were convinced they were being robbed, since one of their knives went missing. Just one. I told them I'd keep an eye out for it, but I kind of doubted I'd ever run into it. It could be anywhere.

So life continued as normal. I was actually a little disappointed at how normal everything seemed. You'd think that a world with magic would work a bit differently from Earth, but it really kind of doesn't. I mean, it's apparently a monarchy with a queen and princess, but at the very least school works the same. You learn, you study, you do good on tests and the like. Apparently Louise is actually a very good student when it comes to studies, but she's terrible when it comes to magic, as we've already discussed.

A few times I think I saw a giant red lizard thing stalking me when I was attending classes with Louise, but that can't possibly be anything important, right?

***Scene Break***

Well, that came back to bite me in the ass way quicker then I expected. Normally when I tempt fate like that it takes at least a day or two before the universe decides to dick around with me. This time it only took a few hours. I was going for a walk around the academy and taking in the sights of this new and fascinating world for about the eightieth time when that red lizard ambushed me and started dragging me to what I can only assume is it's love nest. This could be very, very bad. I'm not really into animals, and I don't even know if this thing's a boy or a girl so that makes things even worse.

Since I couldn't do anything to stop this lizard that seemed hellbent on getting some, I just shut up and let it drag me. The fact that it had a fire tail was kind of a natural deterrent from doing anything rash. I'd much prefer not being burnt to a crisp. Eventually it dragged me into the room that just happened to be right across from Louise's. This could be very bad.

And what do you know, I was only half wrong about the love nest part. The room the lizard dragged me was clearly meant for a human, but it was decorated with all sorts of "Romantic" decorations, including mood lighting, paintings, and scented candles. The sheer amount of clichés the decorator managed to put into one room actually made me want to vomit a bit. I mean, who just leaves a scantily clad girl standing in the middle of the room looking like she's ready to hump the living shit out of something? Especially a dark skinned, red haired girl with watermelons duct taped to her chest? It completely ruins the atmosphere!

"I've been waiting," the talking melons say.

Then it finally occurs to me that she set this whole thing up. That makes much more sense. I remember now! This is Kirche, that... German, or something like that, that Louise hates. Well, whatever she wants I'm sure it's perfectly fine if I refuse it and walk away. I might as well ask first. Maybe she wanted advice on her homework or something. Not that I'd be of any help at all in that regard even if this was back on Earth.

"You've been waiting for me? What for?" I ask.

"After your fight with Guiche, I couldn't help myself," Kirche says. "You were amazing. I wanted you."

That set off a few red flags in my head. There were only two routes I'd even consider going down in this universe, and this was neither of them. Quick! Reload the save! ... Crap! I can't do that! Curse you visual novels for ruining my perception of reality! Maybe I can talk myself out of this. What would Commander Shepard say?

"Um... Wanted me in what way?" Damn it! I pressed her for more information! I meant to use the intimidate option to scare her off! Damn you unclear dialogue wheel!

"I wanted you in every sense of the word," Kirche tells me as she walks up to me. "Do you know what my runic name is?"

I can't think of anything witty to say that wouldn't sound like a double entendre, so I simply shake my head.

"My runic name is the ardent. I'm like a torch, I'm easy to turn on."

Clearly, considering the only noteworthy thing I've done in this world is nearly kill someone.

Before I can tell her how bad of an idea this is, she grabs me and starts making out with me. _This is very bad. Well, at least L- No! Don't think it and it won't happen!_

But apparently Finagle's Law hates me, because Louise kicked down the door at that moment. And her timing couldn't be more perfect.

The unexpectedness of that event cause Kirche to stop kissing me, which gave me the perfect chance to break free of her grasp and hide behind Louise.

"Thank everything good and holy that you're here Louise. Kirche's trying to rape me!" I exclaim.

"You know you wanted it," Kirche says.

"If I wanted it I would have said so! I want nothing to do with this!"

"Both of you shut up!" Louise yells, causing both me and Kirche to fall silent.

Louise points at Kirche. "You! What do you think you're doing with my familiar? Are you trying to steal him like your family always steals from mine?"

Kirche smirks. "Don't your accusations that I'm stealing him in this manner imply that you're currently in that type of relationship with him?"

"Wh-what! Of c-course not!" Louise yells as she starts blushing furiously. "He's just my familiar, therefore he's my property and I refuse to let you take my property!"

Wait, is she honestly referring to me as her _property_? Am I really nothing more then an object to this girl? Being a familiar sucks far more then words can describe. I wonder if all human familiars get treated like this.

Louise and Kirche continue their back and forth, and eventually Louise gets fed up and drags me back to her room. I feel the aura of death start emanating from Louise as soon as we enter and the door closes. God help me.

"You're like a dog in heat!" Louise yells at me.

A dog. Brilliant. Again she compares me to an animal. I should start keeping a tally of all the times she calls me a dog and announce the count when this whole thing is over. Current count: 2. Let's keep it up Louise! Let's aim for over 100!

"What do you mean I'm a dog? She dragged me in there!" I tell Louise. "I had no choice in the matter. I tried telling her to back off, but she tried surgically attaching us at the lips before I could say anything!"

Come to think of it, how would two people surgically attached at the lips even live? I guess they could breathe through their noses, but how would they eat? Maybe they'd be fed intravenously? Why am I thinking about this?

"You want to know something?" Louise says as she start fishing around in her drawers for something. "I almost saw you as an actual person for a minute. I was clearly mistaken."

I bite my tongue to keep from laughing at the sheer absurdity of that statement. Louise not treating me like an animal? There's a higher chance of me single handedly taking down the Colossus of Rhodes.

"Clearly, you are a dog. A lowly, lowly dog and must be treated as such," Louise says as she turns around holding a riding crop.

"Um... I'm afraid to ask, but what's the riding crop for?" I ask in a shaky voice.

"Animals deserve to be treated as such, and I've clearly been to lenient on you. You respond well to negative reinforcement, right?"

Before I can even begin making a crack about S&M that I know she won't get, She starts hitting me with the riding crop.

I don't know if you've ever been hit by a riding crop, but it freaking HURTS! A LOT! Note to self: Avoid angering Master Louise! Never anger Master Louise! Do not anger Master Louise! Pain hurts! A lot! Ow! Ow! Ow!

***Scene Break***

"Wait," Emily begins. "So Kirche, a noble that has men dying at her feet, invites you to her room, and tries to make you her boyfriend and you deny her?"

"Yes," I tell her.

"I knew Kirche was going to do that, but I do applaud you for resisting her."

"Wait," I begin. "How'd you know she was going to do that?"

Emily hesitates and looks away for a second. "Um... Well after you won the duel with Guiche, she did have that kind of look in her eyes, and she did interrogate me about everything I knew about you. Which, I'm reminded, is not a lot. I kind of pegged you as the type of person who would fall for Kirche. Apparently I was wrong."

"You honestly thought I'd be seduced by someone I just met? And besides, I thought you were busy pairing me and Louise?"

"I call them as I see them," Emily tells me with a shrug. "I honestly though you would be seduced by Kirche. Apparently I was wrong. Good thing too. You didn't hear this from me, but there are quite a few of the female staff who would be really upset if you went for Kirche. See, they may or may not have formed a 'fan club' for you after you stood up to the nobles and kicked Guiche's ass, and they've got a whole bunch of betting pools set up for who you'll eventually get together with. There's a betting pool for every girl in the academy, and a few for some of the guys."

... Awkward silence. "And you've taken part in this betting."

Emily smiles and nods. "Yep! I've got 30 gold in for you and Louise, and 5 gold in for either Kirche, Tabitha or Princess Henrietta!"

"The princess? You're honestly going to bet on me getting in a relationship with a monarch I've never met?"

"Yep. The staff here can get pretty motivated about things like that," Emily says in a voice close to a whisper.

"Well... good for them, I guess. Still, it wasn't all bad. I was able to convince Louise to buy me a sword. We should be heading out for town in a few minutes."

"You better buy a good sword. It's unbecoming of a servant of a noble to have a rusty, useless sword."

"So a rusty, useful sword is just fine?"

"Yep."

"I'll keep that in mind. See you around."

"Bye Joshua!"

***Scene Break***

Hot damn, town is crowded. I mean, the three hours it took on horseback to get here was bad enough, but now having to work my way through a cramped street while making sure not to lose sight of Louise? Kind of annoying.

Still, at least Louise agreed to it. I mean, having a sword could prove a boon if I even piss off another noble who challenges me to another duel. So now we were busy walking towards the only sword shop in town, Louise loaded up with 100 new gold coins. Let's hope I can get something good.

Eventually we finally come across the shop and enter. The manager greets us, and I'm immediately wary. He seems like the type of guy to rip someone o- holy shit, this gold sword is freaking shiny!

I start admiring the golden sword and trying it out a bit. It was a little light for my tastes, but it was so shiny. I wanted it.

"How much for the shiny sword?" I ask the patron.

"For you two? 3000 new gold."

Luckily I wasn't drinking anything or I would have done a spit take right then and there. I'm not aware of the currency exchange rate so as far as I know 3000 gold here is -2 cents back home, but 3000 is still a pretty big number.

"W-what!" Louise yells. "That's outrageous! You can by your own castle and plot of land with that type of money!" And that proves my point even more.

"A good sword is a weapon that you entrust your life to. Even a cheap sword can cost as much as 200 new gold!" The shop keep tells us.

"I didn't know they were that much," Louise says sadly as she hangs her head in shame. Curse you economics!

"Well, is there anything you have for 100 gold?" I ask the keeper.

He glares at me displeased, and points at a barrel in the corner of the room. "Anything there is 100 gold. I had to get rid of 'em eventually anyway."

I dash over to the barrel and start inspecting every sword. This one's too long, this one's too light. This one's too blunt, and this one's rainbow colored with a heart on the hilt. ... No thank you.

"I just realized I have no idea what I'm looking for," I mention to myself.

"Great, another idiot who doesn't know a great sword when he sees one."

"W-who said that?" I ask.

"I did! Here! In the barrel!"

I fish around and pull out a rusted sword from where the voice appears to be emanating from. "Eh? You can talk?" Because if so then I am buying you with the force of 1000 suns.

"Apparently your eyes are for decoration. Yes, I talk. I'm Derflinger."

I turned to Louse. "We're buying him. Please?" I don't care what they thought of him, Derfinger felt right. He wasn't too heavy, not to light, and he seemed like he could take a beating and keep on chugging. That, and he could talk. That's always a bit of a plus.

Both the shop keep and Louise look shocked.

"Why do you want that piece of junk?" The shopkeeper asks. "All he does is rust and scare off the customers!" He pauses for a moment. "Actually, you know what? Keep it. I won't even charge you."

I throw up a fist in celebration. "Yes! A free, awesome talking sword! Today is good."

The sword known as Derflinger laughs. "At least someone realizes how amazing I am."

And that was the tale of how I got the greatest sword ever made. Louise wasn't too happy though.

"Did you have to buy that rusted sword? We probably could have got something much better," Louise tells me as we ride back to the academy.

"Hey missy, I'm a legendary sword! I'm the best thing you'll ever use!" Derflinger yells at her.

"And what's so legendary about you?" Louise asks.

"I'm close to 6000 years old! I've been fighting since before your great great grandparents were born!"

"That explains the rust," Louise mutters to herself.

"Ah, don't listen to her Derflinger. She's just upset her familiar couldn't get a fancier sword. It's fine Louise, we got him for free didn't we? You get to save your money!" I say.

"Still, if we tried to bargain we could have maybe gotten a better sword for the 100 gold," Louise adds.

"You're complaining about having gotten a perfectly functional sword for free? Is that just something nobles do?"

Louise responds by smacking me and we continue the ride back to the academy in silence.

***Scene Break***

Why is it that whenever I think things are just fine the universe finds a way to dick around with things and turn them to shit?

Me and Louise had just gotten back from town with Derflinger and we headed into Louise's room when we ran into Kirche who apparently had a present for me. That amazing golden sword that cost a whole mansion to buy, apparently.

Which led us to the current situation of Louise and Kirche arguing in the former's room. The quiet, glasses-wearing, blue haired girl who's always with Kirche, apparently named Tabitha and not Nagato despite the similarities, was sitting on Louise's bed while the two best buddies stood in the middle of the room arguing. I was holding Derflinger and the gold sword I have named Steve. Stupid name, but I didn't plan on keeping the sword, I was fine with a talking one. Of course neither Louise nor Kirche felt like listening to me, so me and Tabitha involuntarily played the part of the audience to the "Kirche Insulting Louise and Implying the Latter is in Love With Me while Louise Vehemently Denies Everything Show." It's on every other Thursday at 3 P.M. Stay tuned for the next episode when the two get into a cat fight! Me-ouch! ... I'm sorry. I deeply apologize for that pun.

"I'm just saying," Kirche begins, "If the servant of a noble, especially one as amazing as Joshua," _Oh give me a freaking break. _"Should have a sword, shouldn't he at least have one befitting of the nobility he serves?"

"He has a sword already!" Louise yells back at Kirche. "And does that useless golden sword talk?" Louise turns to Derflinger. "Sword, say something."

"I'd rather you keep me out of this argument," Derflinger says before shutting himself in his scabbard.

Louise turns back to Kirche, "See? Does your stupid gold trinket do that?"

"Well here's an idea," I remark in my attempt at a deadpan delivery. "Why don't you just take me, bind me with rope and hand me from one of the castle's towers? First one to cut the rope and get me down is the person who's sword I use."

That statement was me trying to propose such a ridiculous was of solving things that they'd just drop the whole angry talk. I mean, after people start suggesting things like that, I believe it's about time to end the argument, wouldn't you think?

***Scene Break***

Or you could actually go through with the suggestion and hang me from one of the tallest towers in the academy.

"I was joking!" I yell at the two mages ready to try and send me to almost certain death. "I was not seriously suggesting that you do this!"

They ignored me. Since I'm so high up I can't quite hear them or see them well, but luckily for me their hair colors stand out, so I can easily tell that Tabitha and Kirche are hanging back a bit and Louise is first up. Someone help me.

I can faintly make out Louise waving around her wand and then she points it at me. The wall behind me explodes and I go swinging around like a tetherball. I'm able to catch a glimpse of the wall, and luckily it's still intact, but it's really cracked. I could probably breathe on it and it would self detonate. Let's not try that. I'm to busy being scared out of my wits at how close that was to being me. I'm not as sturdy as a magically enhanced brick wall. The only reason I've still survived the number of explosions Louise has bestowed on me that is surely in the high double digits is because she's kind enough to aim next to me instead of at me. After all, I'm her familiar and if I died like that she's the one who'd have to clean up my bloody giblets, and that's not fun for anybody.

I look to see how everyone else is doing while I hang about 137 feet about the ground. Kirche is doubled over in what I can only assume is laughter, Louise looks like she's throwing a tantrum and Tabitha is standing there doing her best Nagato impression, saying nothing and reading a book. I wish I could be awesome enough to just stand as still and silent as a statue after someone nearly got blown up.

Anyway, Kirche takes a step forward, and Louise doesn't budge from her tantrum spot. Kirche starts waving her wand around, but right as she's about to point it at me, Louise "accidentally" trips and pushes her over, making a fire blade brush right past my head. Thank you Louise! Because of that little stunt, which I don't even now why you did it, I nearly had half of my head torched off. Louise and Kirche get up and start yelling at each other so loud I can hear it from here. I'd tell you what they said, but it wasn't very pretty. I didn't know so many of our curse words and insults existed in this world.

While I sit their, lamenting the fact that I'm probably never getting down from here, I hear a loud booming noise. Either I'm the only one who hears it, or I'm the only one that cares, because Louise and Kirche continue arguing and yelling curses at each other.

I start looking around when all of a sudden, a giant rock monster steps out from behind... somewhere and walks over to this tower. That get's everyone's attention. A little late, I might add. How the hell did this 200 foot tall being made of solid rock manage to sneak up on us?

Anyway, it was an interesting thing. It kind of looked like the Yellow Devil from Mega Man. I mean, it was more brown, made of rocks, and had two eyes instead of one, but if you compared silhouettes of the two, you'd have a difficult time telling them apart.

Rock Devil, as I am now calling him, walked up to the tower I was currently suspended from and delivered a punch that would make most men weep with shame at how inferior their punches are. Said amazing punch connected with the tower I was currently hanging from. The wall that was previously only cracked was busted open, and the rope that as keeping me hanging came loose and I started to fall.

Luckily for me Tabitha is quick with spells and cast some sort of slow gravity spell, because my fall slows significantly and smoothly. Good thing too. If I had just suddenly stopped then the shock from such a stop might have made me go the way of Gwen Stacey and if I'm going out in this world, I'd rather it be doing something awesome instead of having my neck snapped due to a slight bout of stupidity from someone who should know better.

So the spell fixed my immediate problem of a rough landing, but upon landing on the ground on my back I had another problem: I was still tied up and unable to move. Damn me and my stupid suggestions! Next time those two argue, I'm keeping my mouth shut.

Okay, if I wiggle enough, I think I might be able to loosen the ropes enough to a point where I could get out. Or I could swallow my pride and ask for help from Louise or Kirche. I like that option better, there's a higher chance of success. Luckily for me, Louise isn't too far away and is trying to cast a spell or something to fend off the golem. Her explosions keep missing though, so we can't rely on that.

"Um... Sorry to interrupt your attempts at stoping the golem, but help!" I scream.

Louise's head snaps over to my direction and she runs over to where I am, kneels down and starts trying to undo the ropes keeping me bound.

"Stupid... Familiar... How'd you get like this?" She asks me as she struggles with the ropes.

"What? You're the one who did this!"

"Not important! Just a few seconds," Louise says as she struggles with the restraints some more.

Unfortunately, we didn't have a few seconds. Whatever Rock Devil wanted, it was in the tower it just broke into, because it was walking towards it. Unfortunately, me and Louise were in it's way, and it didn't seem to notice us, because it's foot was coming down. Slowly, but it was still coming down. Wow. This has to be the slowest step I've ever seen in anything ever. That, or adrenaline really does make time seem to stop, which is annoying because I still can't move.

"G-got it!" Louise yells as I feel the ropes fall off me and I can move freely again. I use my newly regained freedom to grab Louise in the good old style of a bridal carry and jump out from under where the Rock Devil's foot was now occupying. Just a few seconds and we would've been pancakes. Joshua and Louise pancakes. That's a charming thought.

I put Louise down before she can realize what I just did and complain and I look at Rock Devil, but I notice something different: Everything's blue again. I notice that my heart appears to be racing and I can feel my blood flow is slightly faster then usual, which worries me because I don't think I should be able to feel my blood flow. Moving on, everything was blue, except Rock Devil which was red, but that drew my attention to something else. On the Rock Devil's right shoulder was what looked like someone standing on it, and he was highlighted in yellow. No, wait. "He," just turned around slightly, probably to survey the damage and the yellow highlighted silhouette shows that it's definitely a woman. After all, most men don't have hair that long and a chest that size. Not at the same time anyway. She also appeared to be holding a box of some kind. It was probably full of whatever she came here to steal. That's good to know, we managed to help a thief with her heist. This night turned out well.

I turned to Louise, who was highlighted in a lighter shade of blue. "While I appreciate the help, I have to wonder. Why didn't you run at all?"

Louise looks offended. "You think I'd just abandon you? A great mage never leaves their familiar!"

"Well, that too, but I was wondering why you didn't run when the golem appeared."

"Oh," is Louise's response. "Well... Um... I wanted to prove I wasn't a zero," she says quietly. "If we could have stopped the golem, maybe..."

I give her a pat on the back. "Hey, don't worry about it. I'm sure whatever was stolen wasn't that important, and if it was, we'll go after it. I'm sure the faculty's going to hear about this sooner or later."

Louise nods. "Right. We'll ask the headmaster for permission to track down the thief!"

You know, I just noticed something, where are Tabitha and Kirche? I movement in the sky shows that they're riding around on Slyphid. They're also highlighted in blue. Wait, weren't they not highlighted when I fought Guiche? Were they even there? What do the different colors mean? I feel my blood flow return to normal, and the extra colors fade drain away like ink on a wet piece of paper, and everything's back to the way it was, color-wise.

_Hmm. Maybe it's like adrenaline or something similar? I need a name for it. Battle Mode, maybe? It's stupid and generic, but I don't really have anything else to call it, considering when it activates._

I'll worry about what Battle Mode is and how it works later. For now, we all need to go to sleep.

***Scene Break***

Well I was right about the faculty wanting to know about the incident. They actually went to investigate the thing right after we left, and had just missed us. Having heard from someone that we were out around the time of the theft, we were called to the headmaster's office to try and explain what had happened. Inside the headmaster's office were about two other people. I guess this is a matter of the utmost secrecy.

The headmaster himself looked like a generic old wizard, he had a staff, long white beard and looked like he could barely stand on his own despite the fact that he could. Also in attendance was the guy who was there when Louise summoned me, Mr. Colbert. He was bald, wore glasses, and seemed like a bit of a bookish person in general. The third person was apparently the headmaster's assistant, Mrs. Loungueville. She, like Colbert, wore glasses and had long green hair and seemed to be realistically proportioned. Every girl I've talked to is either a cutting board or watermelons. Aside from Loungueville here, there doesn't seem to be much in-between. Well, I guess Emily has some on her. They're not that big, but they're bigger then Louise's and WHY THE HELL AM I COMPARING THEIR BREAST SIZES?

Well, getting off of that train of thought, in total it was me, Louise, Kirche, Tabitha, Colbert, Mrs. Loungueville and the headmaster present.

"So, these are the three who witnessed the crime?" The headmaster asks.

I sigh. Does no one here see me as anymore then a familiar? I'm a person too you know, even if I was roped into servitude.

"Would you please tell us what happened?" Colbert asks.

Lousie and Kirche exchange glances, then Kirche and Tabitha trade glances, and Louise and I trades glances. Louise eventually breaks the silence.

"The three of us and my familiar were having a study period and we decided to meet outside before heading inside. When we met outside at the courtyard we heard the golem approaching and saw it break through the wall of the tower, take what it came for and leave. We tried to stop it, but we were unsuccessful," Louise tells the three faculty present.

Headmaster nods, Loungueville looks satisfied, and Colbert looks curious.

"If you don't mind, would you mind telling us the details of the crime?" I ask.

"The thief was none other then the infamous Fouquet of the Crumbling Earth," Headmaster tells us. "He left his signature etched on the wall, and that's how we know. The object stolen was the Staff of Destruction, an immensely dangerous item."

Well, with a name like the Staff of Destruction, is saying it's dangerous really necessary? And why would you keep something like that at a school were kids live? It's bound to draw attention and it practically begs for someone to steal it. I don't see where the faculty's logic was when the decided on keeping it here. Apparently the fact that such an item was stolen is a shock as it prompts Louise and Kirche both gasp. Tabitha raises her eyebrows in what I can only assume is as much surprise as she'll ever muster.

"What! _The_ Fouquet!" Louise and Kirche say at the same time.

Loungueville nods. "Yes. Thanks to my investigation I conducted immediately after we discovered the crime, I have been able to locate him."

This elicits another gasp from Louise and Kirche. "You found him! How?" Louise asks.

"Several townsfolk have reported seeing a person with a black hooded cloak head to a hut in the forest. Thanks to them I believe I know where the hut is located."

"Ah, yes," begins Headmaster. "The black hooded cloak is unmistakeable. It must be Fouquet!"

"Oh dear god, please let that be sarcasm," I say under my breath. I mean, come on. A black hooded cloak is an unmistakable symbol? Are hoods really that rare in this world? If I put my hood up would anyone mistake me for Fouquet? Considering my jacket's white I doubt it, but never underestimate human stupidity.

"Headmaster?" Louise asks.

"Yes Ms. Vallière?"

"I want to go after Fouquet."

"What?" Is the response of everyone except Tabitha and myself.

My response is, "Hell yes! I'm in agreement with Master Louise!"

"You want to go after him?" Headmaster asks. "Why?"

"It's out fault he got away in the first place. If we tried harder we might have been able to stop him before he stole the Staff of Destruction," Louise tells the room. "I want to be able to catch him."

"In that case I'm going too!" Kirche says. "I can't let a Vallière hog all the credit, now can I?" She adds with a wink.

Tabitha raises her staff. "Me too."

Mrs. Loungueville is the first to speak. "Are you sure about this? I can probably take you to the hut, but it'll be dangerous. Fouquet hasn't exactly been know for being a nice, reasonable fellow."

"Question," I say as I raise my hand. "What is Fouquet known for?"

Everyone looks at me curiously. "He's known for being untraceable," Colbert begins. "He shows up, steals something, then disappears from sight."

"Right, and why is it that everyone call her a guy?" I ask.

"What?" Is everyone's reply. Even Tabitha's, though it's a bit quieter then the others.

"What are you talking about?" Ms. Loungueville asks.

"You mean none of you saw it?" I ask Tabitha, Kirche and Louise who all shake their heads. "I only saw a silhouette, so I didn't catch any details, but when the golem showed up it was clearly a female, not a male. And Ms. Loungueville?"

"W-what is it?" Hmm... Is it me or is she getting nervous?

"I can't help but wonder, if Fouquet is known for being impossible to find, how'd you find her in just a few hours?"

"Are you trying to imply something?" Headmaster asks.

"Yeah, what are you trying to say Joshua?" Louise asks me.

"Nothing," though I do have my suspicions. "I just don't like going into things like this without all the information, and someone's keeping secrets from us, be that person Fouquet, or someone else," I tell the room.

They're all silent for a while. Eventually headmaster breaks the silence.

"Well, whoever is keeping secrets isn't important right now. Ms. Loungueville, prepare a carriage and take them to this hut you've spoken of."

Loungueville nods. "Yes, headmaster."

***Scene Break***

"Okay, so what's the plan?" I ask Tabitha, Louise and Kirche.

We had just arrived at the hut, and we were busy brainstorming a plan. Loungueville headed off into the surrounding woods to go search for Fouquet while we unsupervised children were sent to check out the most likely trap infested hut that supposedly held the Staff of Destruction. Your logic is... what exactly?

"I say that we send in the person with the best reflexes to check out the hut," Kirche says. "That way if there are any traps they can get out of their quickly."

"Right, that's a good idea," I say. "Who here has the best reflexes?"

They all look at me.

"Um... I think they're talking about you," Derflinger says from my back.

"Oh... Right."

I take Derflinger out of sheathe and the runes on my hand start glowing. My vision remained the same, so that's nice. I approached the hut very cautiously, but quickly because the less time spent in life threatening situations, the better. When I got to the hut I started looking around, checking everywhere to make sure there weren't any booby traps. When I reasonably sure that there were no traps, I sheathed Derflinger called everyone over.

We then proceeded to kick down the door and enter the hut to begin our search for the Staff of Destruction. Only for the box to be sitting in plain sight on the table. Where's Ackbar when you need him?

"Is this the staff's box? I ask the group.

Louise nods. "Yes. I saw it once when I was touring the academy for the first time."

Well that's nice. The all powerful destructive staff of destruction is a popular touring site. Common sense must not be a magical trait.

"Should we open it up to make sure it's still in there?" Kirche asks.

Tabitha nods, so I hold the box, pop open the two latches (nice to know that some things never change) and opened the lid. I nearly dropped the damn thing right then.

"Is this really the staff?" Kirche asks.

"I don't know," Louise replies. "It's like nothing I've ever seen. Huh? What's with you Joshua?"

"This... Do any of you know what you have here?" I ask them.

"What do you mean? It's the Staff of Destruction! Of course we know what it is!" Louise tells me.

I shake my head. "No, of course you don't know. This is-"

I'm cut off by a loud banging sound outside. Oh goody, Rock Devil's back.

"Nobody move, I've got this," I say as I take the staff of destruction out of the box and sling it over my shoulder.

"What! What are you going to do with the staff?" Louise asks me.

"Trust me, I've played Call of Duty before." And according to most news media sources, that apparently more then qualifies me to use this thing.

"What?"

But instead of answering anyone's question, I take the staff, march outside and see Rock Devil again.

_Okay, so how do I do this again? Which end fires again? _Luckily all my concerns are put to rest when I hold the staff. My runes light up, and information fills my brain. Like that I was holding it backwards. That wouldn't have been good.

I flip the staff around, lift up the targeting reticle, get the thing all nice and dolled up for it's big debut, then I hoist it up on my shoulder, aim at Rock Devil, and pull the trigger.

Thankfully the rocket still worked and it fired out and hit Rock devil square in the torso, completely obliterating his top half. Rock Devil's legs stay where they are for a bit, before crumbling into dust.

Whew! Thank everyone back home for Rocket Launchers! Especially this M72 rocket launcher. That could have been a really difficult fight otherwise.

The rest of the group runs out of the hut and comes up to me.

"What... what was that?" Kirche asks.

"How did you use the Staff of Destruction?" Louise asks.

I laugh. "See that's the thing. This isn't a staff in the least."

"Really, then what is it?" I turn around and see Loungueville step out of the woods and approach out group.

"Well that's not something I'm at liberty to discuss. I'll have to bring it up with the headmaster," I say and hand the rocket launcher over to Loungueville. "Well, mission accomplished, right? We can go home now?"

Loungueville smirks an evil smirk. "If only it were that simple. I must wonder what this could possibly be. It did take out my golem in one shot."

"What!" Is our reaction.

"Rock Devil was your creation?" I ask.

Loungueville raises an eyebrow. "Rock Devil?"

Crap, nobody here's going to get that reference. "Nothing. But that means you're Fouquet, doesn't it?"

Lougueville nods and takes off her glasses. "Congratulations! You figured it out! But have you figured out my plan and why I let you get the staff so easily?"

"No, and I don't really care," I say. "Would you be kind enough to hand it back so we can return it to the school and turn you in?"

"No."

"Right. I take it now you're going to shoot us?" I ask.

Fouquet laughs a mad laugh. "Right again!" She jumps back about 10 feet and hefts the Rocket Launcher on her shoulder like she saw me do and points it at our group. Louise, Tabitha and Kirche hold onto each other and kneel on the ground while I stay standing.

"Any last words before I blow you all to bits?" Fouquet asks.

"Yes, actually," I say as I unsheathe Derflinger and walk calmly towards Fouquet. "That's not going to do you any good."

"What do you mean! You destroyed my golem with one shot!" Fouquet doesn't wait for an answer and pulls the trigger. Nothing happens. "What? But-"

I don't give her a chance to finish as I hit her across the face with the butt of Derlfinger's hilt.

I kneel down next to the unconscious Fouquet. "Let me tell you a secret, it only has one shot before you need to reload it, and there's no more ammo. The thing's a paperweight now. Weapons from my world work like that."

I pick up the staff and turn to the girls who are still huddled together on the floor waiting for their explosive end.

"I hate to interrupt your together time ladies, but I need some help carrying the dead weight formally known as Fouquet back to the academy," I tell them.

They open their eyes, which widen to the size of saucer plates when they see me holding the staff and Fouquet unconscious on the ground.

"How?" Its Tabitha's simple question.

"Yeah, these things tend to work better when they have actual ammo in them," I say as I pat the M72 Rocket Launcher. "Come on, let's head back to the academy."

As I head back for the carriage that brought us here, I cant help but wonder. Does this count as saving their lives? I mean, the golem went down in one shot before it even got close to the hut, and the rocket launcher was out of ammo so there was no way Fouquet was going to kill them, so could I claim I saved their lives? Probably not, and even if I did ever save Louise's life she'd never let me mention it. It would probably be a huge hit to her pride if anyone found out she ever had her life saved by a commoner with a sword.

***Scene Break***

When we got back to the academy we explained the situation to the Headmaster and Colbert. They praised us for doing so well and dolled out the spoils. Louise and Kirche were made Chevaliers, which is apparently a big deal, and Tabitha got the Elven medallion which is also apparently a big deal.

"Headmaster, Joshua won't get anything?" Louise asked.

"Due to his status of not being a noble, he can't get anything," Headmaster tells her.

"It's fine, all I did was blow the hell out that golem. Besides, I do have a question to ask, so maybe you can do that?" I ask.

Headmaster nods and shoos the girls out of the room so they can go prepare for the ball that was going to be cancelled due to Foquet. That's me! Joshua Springfield, catcher of uncatchable thieves, wielder of a badass talking sword and savior of dance balls!

"I was hoping you could tell me about these runes," I say as I show the headmaster my left hand.

"I had a feeling you'd ask about those," he says as he strokes his "magnificent" beard.

I nod. "During the battle with Guiche when I grabbed the sword he offered me the runes lit up and I kicked his ass. Even if dad was a bit of a swordsman, I've never touched a sword before. Also when we captured Fouquet and I held the staff of destruction, the runes lit up and I knew how to use it. I've never used a Rocket Launcher before. Any idea what that means?"

"Those runes of yours are special. They are the mark of Gandalfar," Headmaster tells me.

My mind immediately jumps to Gandalf and I briefly ponder how awesome it would be to be a badass, immortal wizard, but then I realize that he added an "-ar" to the end and my hopes and dreams are crushed. So much for that.

"Those runes carry a special power," Headmaster continues. "They give you the knowledge of how to use any weapon you hold. Such as swords and the Staff of Destruction."

I'm an instant expert in any weapon I touch? Does that mean these runes just turned me into every video game protagonist ever? Because if so than that more then makes up for not being Gandalf.

I nod. "Well that explains a lot, thank you headmaster."

"Now I have a question for you," He tells me. "You referred to the staff as a... What was it, Rocket Launcher? What do you mean?"

Ah. That. Should I tell him the truth? "Well, simply put, neither I nor that weapon are from this world. We're from a different world and we both somehow ended up here."

Headmaster nods like he expected something like that. "I see. Another world. That does make sense."

"Speaking of which, how did you come across the Staff?" This could provide a clue to get back home. I mean, I like it here and all, but I do still have family and friends back home. Hopefully they're not to worried. Hell, even if all I can do is slip a note or something back home to let them know I'm alright, I think that'd be enough.

Headmaster then told me a really long and pretty boring story about how some guy in a uniform he didn't recognize saved his life by using one of two rocket launchers to blow the shit out of a dragon that was about to eat the headmaster. One launcher was buried with the guy, and the other was kept and put on display here. Unfortunately, the guy was dead and the story provided me no clues how to get home. Well, you can't win them all.

***Scene Break***

I was currently chilling out on a balcony by myself while everyone else was inside the building dancing. What was this ball called again? Ball of Figs or something like that?

So everyone was dancing and having a good time while I just stayed out on the balcony with naught but Derflinger as company. He's a pretty good conversationalist, even if he is a sword with a shoddy memory.

"The daughter of Duke Vallière, Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière has arrived," I here someone shout.

Okay, commit that to memory. Louise Fran... *cough* la blank de... screw it. She's Louise Vallière.

Speaking of Louise, did she at least get dressed up for the ball? I turned to look and saw her entering the room, and I think my heart stopped. I mean, damn. She could look really, _really,_ good when she tried. She was wearing a long white, fancy dress complete with those gloves that cover half your arm, and she was even wearing high heels! At least that's what it looked like. It was either that or she grew about three inches in the last few hours. Ah, but what completed the image was that she did her hair. She had it all done up in a ponytail. Damn it. How'd she figure out my weakness? I've always thought that ponytails were the best type of hairstyle for any women to have, and apparently Louise found that out somehow. Damn.

As soon as she enters Louise is practically swarmed with people asking her to dance. The people who were insulting her and calling her zero are now hopelessly infatuated with her. Do dresses and hairstyles really have that kind of power? If it's ponytails and me, the answer is yes. Damn my interests.

"She cleans up really nicely, doesn't she?" Derflinger asks.

"Shut up please," I say as I curse myself for not having any alcohol to use an excuse for why my face is so red. Maybe if I hurry I can sneak to the table, grab a shot and use that as an exc-

"Enjoying the dance?" Louise asks.

Damn everything! Stop dicking with me Finagle's Law! Well, at least it's not raining out here on the balcony. ... No rain. That's more like it.

"Dances aren't really my thing, but I can see that everyone else is enjoying it greatly," I say.

"Hey missy, you really need to try more often. You're getting partner all tongue tied with that dress!" Derflinger says.

"Shut up!" Me and Louise yell at the sword simultaneously.

"Anyway, why aren't you dancing with someone?" I ask her.

"I don't have a dance partner," She says as she looks away.

"What? You had half of the school practically worshipping you!" I exclaim.

She responds by simply offering me her hand. "I could dance with you, it you want," She says, her gaze still directed elsewhere.

...

"Um... S-sure. I mean, would you care to have this dance, my lady?" Got to be formal with this, right?

"You may."

Step 1: assume slow dance position. One hand holding her's and the other on... hip, right? She'll let me know if I'm doing it wrong because I'll be dead.

Step 2: Begin dance and hope I don't screw up to badly. I've danced like this before, but that was a few years ago and it went pretty terribly. I've still yet to figure out how that stage caught on fire.

"Joshua?"

"Yes, Louise?"

"I believe you now."

Um... about what? Oh! "You mean about me being from another world?"

She nods. "The Staff of Destruction is a weapon from your world, isn't it? I've certainly never seen anything like it."

"I've only seen replicas of it as well, never the real thing, though it was easier to fire then I thought," I tell her.

That train of conversation just kind of dies, and me and Louise continue dancing.

"Thank you," Louise tells me after a minute of science.

"Excuse me? What for?"

"When the golem first appeared, it nearly crushed us, but you saved me, didn't you?" Louise says, her face starting to blush for some reason.

"Don't worry about it."

"I'll be counting on you to keep me safe. You know that, right?"

"As your familiar, I acknowledge that. You don't have to worry about me doing anything less."

"Right. Thanks Joshua."

Oh, right! Before I forget! "By the way, just call me Josh. I prefer it to Joshua and it's shorter."

"Okay then Josh."

There, much better. I've got nothing against Joshua, but I just like the shorter version better. It just kind of rolls off the tongue. Well, I've got my mental checklist out, so let's tally it up!

Tell her I prefer being called Josh: Check

Promise to protect her or at least say something along those lines: Check

Give recipe for pizza to the kitchen so they can start making some: Hm... I need to work on that.

It's kind of funny, I really meant what I was saying. About the protecting Louise, not the pizza though that is a bit of a priority as well. I was going to do my best to protect her. I mean, I kind of had to being her familiar and being Gandalfar, that makes me even more capable of doing that. Besides, if I don't protect her, who will? It's not like she has a fiancé or anything. ... Thats's going to come back and bite me in the ass ridiculously hard, isn't it?

**Author Notes:**

Ariana: I want a rocket launcher. I want one really badly.

Uncreative: I value my life far too much to let that happen.

Ariana: Awwww. Okay, so any interesting notes about this chapter? I noticed Joshua seems to have a thing for ponytails. Any notes on that?

Uncreative: No points for guessing that reference.

Ariana: Can a fetish be considered a reference?

Uncreative: If it can, then it's still obvious.

Ariana: Not doubting that. Now, what's up with that blue vision thing? It identified Fouquet with the yellow aura thing. Don't tell me it's Eagle Vision and he's from Assassin's Creed or something, is he?

Uncreative: Yep.

Ariana: Holy crap, really? Is he related to Desmond, or something?

Uncreative: Nope. I like thinking he's from a different bloodline founded by a different "one who came before" or whatever those things call themselves.

Ariana: And that means Josh is only part human due to that fact, just like Desmond and Ezio?

Uncreative: If being partly "first civilization" means you're not human, then yes. Weird, I never thought of it like that.

Ariana: Very few ever do. Anything else from there showing up or is that it?

Uncreative: You know the answer to that question. I just thought it would be a nice little boon for him, it doesn't really have an impact on the story at all, which is why I've neglected to mention it outside of these author notes. That's really about all I have to say about this chapter, see you next time.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Onward and Upwards**

It was just another normal day, and I was currently in the kitchen, chatting with Emily.

"So, what'd you do at the ball, Emi?" I asked her using the name she insisted on. Whenever I called her Emily she slapped me upside the head, so now it's become a bit of a habit.

"Oh, the usual. Maidly things like serving and making sure everything's in place at the table," Emily said. "Speaking of the ball, I was working there around the time Louse showed up," _Ah, crap. _"How'd you rope Louise in so fast? I never figured she'd be one to fall in love so quickly!"

"I-it's not love!"

"Right, that's why she was dancing with you and blushing heavily the entire time. Have you slept with her yet?"

"WHAT!"

Emily laughs. "Sorry, but I've run into that before. A friend of mine, his name's Scott, thought that his boss, her name's Elise, was into him, and one day they had to share a room, so he tried to get lucky. He's lucky to be alive."

"I feel sorry for your friend, but I am not stupid enough to assume Louise, the one who whips me and restricts meals, is in love with me, nor do I think that trying to have sex with someone against their will is a good idea at all, get it?" I tell her sternly.

"Right, good, just checking. Just remember: if she ever rejects her fiancé you should wonder why she ever did that," Emily says.

"What? She's got a fiancé?" I ask. The thought of Louise having a fiancé makes me feel really nervous. I mean, who gets married at 16, right? That's all I was implying. Right.

Emily looks away. "Um... N-not that I'm aware of. J-just as an example. Yeah, an example."

I give her a curious look, but say nothing. I was out here way later then I needed to be, and I really needed to get back to Louise's room. When I got up to Louise's room, it turns out I might as well not have shown up. Louise was just sitting on her bed in a state of near catatonic state. She didn't react when I walked in, and she didn't react when I sat down on the bed next to her.

"Hey Louise, what's the matter?"

"Princess," is all she says.

Oh yeah, wasn't the princess stopping by to visit the academy? I think I heard that from one of the kitchen staff at one point. So what did that have to do with Louise? Did she and the princess not like each other or something?

*Knock Knock*

Oh look, someone's dropping by to visit. Apparently Louise already knows who because she jumps to her feet and rushes for the door faster then I thought possible for her. She throws the door open, and some purple haired girl wearing a hood came in and shut the door behind her. Um, you know, that hood isn't covering your face right? I can clearly see who you are, I just don't know who you are.

Purple takes off the hood and Louise gasps. "P-Princess!" Louise yells as she kneels before the princess.

"You're the princess?" I ask her.

Before she can reply, Louise grabs my head and forces it onto the floor hard enough to dent the wood.

"Know your place stupid familiar!" Well, it's better then dog, but I can't add stupid familiar to the tally!

"Louise, it's okay," The princess says. "Yes, I'm Princess Henrietta. You are?"

"I'm Louise's familiar, Joshua Springfield," I say as I stand back up. "Nice to meet you."

"A pleasure to meet you dependable familiar," Henrietta says before turning to the still kneeling Louise. "Louise, please stand up, we're friends are we not?"

That explains a lot. Those two are friends and Louise probably never thought she'd see the princess in a situation like this what with the embarrassment of having me for a familiar which is probably why Louise was near catatonic. I love it when I piece together a mystery. They're one of those dawning moments of comprehension that I live for. Those and the moments that make you go "Ah, shit." Those moments are pretty awesome too.

Louise and Henrietta then spent the next 5 or 10 minutes talking about the past and how amazing of friends they used to be. I have to admit, it was pretty heartwarming seeing Louise talking with an old friend. What with her sucking at magic and everyone giving her hell for it, I've never seen Louise have a friendly conversation with someone. Maybe a little too friendly. I wish I had my computer so I could write a Louise/Henrietta fan fic. Wait, was I seriously considering writing a fan fic on my life just to appease my desire to see Louise and Henrietta in that situation? ... Yes.

Eventually the topic turned to while Henrietta was really here. She was getting married! To the head of Germania, the country Louise hates. Aside from the insults hurled towards the country and the 26 times Louise called them barbarians, I'd say she took the news well. So why was Henrietta here if she was getting married?

"There's one thing that can destroy the wedding and throw the entire alliance with Germania off," Henrietta tells us.

"What is it?" Louise asks. "Just ask and we'll go get it!"

Hey! What's this about a we? I never volunteered to get involved in politics! Wait, did Louise just involve me automatically? The one she never views as any more then property? It was probably just since I'd have to come along anyway, it probably doesn't mean anything.

"It's a letter I sent to the royal family of Albion," the princess tells us.

Oh great, Albion. Can I never escape you Peter Molyneux? I swear to any higher power, if I find the king farting in the faces of citizens there will be hell to pay.

"So you want us to go to Albion and ask the family for the letter back?" I ask.

Henrietta nods and hands us a letter. "Yes. Give Prince Wales this letter and he should give you the letter."

Trading letters. I have the powers of the most powerful familiar of the most powerful mage in history and I'm playing post boy. I guess I really have been turned into a video game protagonist, fetch quests included. That reminds me, I really should tell Louise about the Gandalfar runes. Maybe after this trip.

"We won't fail you princess!" Louise tells her as she picks up the letter.

Henrietta takes off the ring she had on her finger and hands it to me of all people. "This is the water ruby that I received from my mother. It should act like a good luck charm at the very least and please sell it should you ever run into monetary troubles."

I nod and put the ring in my pocket. "We're both thankful and all, but why did you give the ring to me?"

"I believe I can trust you. You are the familiar of my dearest friend after all, I know you wouldn't fail either of us," Henrietta tells me.

"Oh, so no pressure then?" I ask.

Henrietta chuckles and Louise looks ready to hit me for some reason. Then again does she really need an excuse to hit me? She can do anything she wants to me and get away with it since she's my master. Wait, anything? So she could- NO NO NO! BAD THOUGHTS!

"Don't worry princess, we definitely won't fail you," I tell her.

Then Guiche broke down the door and barged in. Wha-

"Princess! You cannot entrust such an important mission to just the likes of those two! Allow me to help!" He yells.

"Guiche, were you spying on us?" Louise asks with anger in her voice.

"What? No! I mean, I saw the princess enter here and-" He doesn't finish because I punch him in the face and knock him unconscious. Thank you upper body strength!

"What should we do when he wakes up? He knows too much," I tell Henrietta.

Henrietta shakes her head. "The Gramont family is well respected and I see no problem letting him assist you on your mission. I will also assign a royal escort to ensure safety."

Oooh! A bodyguard trusted enough by the princess to keep an eye on us and make sure the mission runs smoothly? This should be fun. I'll have to keep an eye on him or her though. It's always the most trusted ones that get sent on important missions and wind up doing a face heel turn and betraying us all along. This'll be interesting.

***Scene Break***

Louise, Guiche and myself were waiting at the entrance gate of the academy for our royally assigned escort to show up.

"Before we go I have a request," Guiche tells us.

"And that is?" I ask.

"I wish to bring my familiar along with us," he says.

"And your familiar is..."

"Right here," Guiche says as he gestures towards the ground.

Taking that as it's cue, the ground rises up and a giant mole with an upside down blue triangle on it's forehead pops out of the ground. And it was the most adorable mole I've ever seen in my life. It's also the only one so that narrows down the competition, but still.

"Oh Verdandi, you're so cute no matter how many times I see you!" Guiche says as he starts rubbing his cheek against the mole.

... Okay, I wouldn't have gone that far no matter how cute an animal was. I draw the line at rubbing your cheek against it. In public.

"Guiche, Albion's a floating continent," Louise says. "We'll have trouble bringing a mole along with us.

Yeah, sorry Guiche but- wait, what! Floating continent? Yes! Onwards to Skyloft!

Then at that moment Verdandi went predator and started sniffing me with great interest, probably to try and eat me for dinner.

"Guiche, why is your mole thinking about making me it's next dinner?" I ask.

"Verdandi would never do that! She's a straight herbivore. Do you have any jewelry in your pockets? She loves gems," Guiche tells me.

"Oh well in that case," I pull the water ruby our of my pocket and Verdandi's eyes immediately focus on it. "That explains it. Guiche, tell your mole she can't have the ring."

"My concern is whether or not he is capable of speaking mole," says a voice.

Oh thank god, our escort is here! ... And he looks like the dad of one of the three musketeers. I mean, he doesn't look like he's any older then 20 or 30 something, but his hair was silver making him look quite a bit older and his hat looked like it was pulled straight from the renaissance, feather in it and everything.

"A pleasure to meet you all, I am Viscount Wardes," renaissance man tells us.

"Viscount Wardes? The captain of the Griffon knights?" Guiche asks.

"Yes, I am the captain," he tells Guiche before heading to Louise. "And how is my Louise doing?" Wardes says as he picks Louise up.

What? Explain?

"Viscount, please, it was arranged by my parents," Louise says while averting her gaze and blushing.

"I'm sorry, please explain," I say. "Wardes is who exactly?"

"He's my fiancé," Louise says as Wardes puts her down. "My parents arranged it."

Note to self: Slap Emily upside the head the first chance I get for lying to my face about Louise having a fiancé. I'll also have to ask her how she knew that anyway. I doubt Louise told her about it or that Wardes dropped by often. Also, points for me, I said it would bite me in the ass, and it has. Yay!

"Pleasure to meet you Viscount Wardes," I say while offering a handshake, "I'm Joshua Springfield, Louise's familiar."

"Ah, yes, I've heard some good things about you," Wardes says while shaking my hand. "Did you not help my Louise capture Fouquet?"

I'm the only one who did anything to catch Fouquet, but that's only because I had a rocket launcher. And stop calling her "my Louise." It makes you seem like a pedophile considering she's underage. Actually, what is the age of consent here? If it is 16 then he's perfectly fine and it's just my fault for being in the mindset of 18 being the right age.

"Yes I did help catch Fouquet, but I'm sure we have time to talk about that on the way to Albion, right?"

"You're right, we can't afford to waste time," Wardes says. "The rebels could take over at any point."

Rebels? Did I miss something here? Wait! I remember now, Henrietta did say something about Albion being taken over by rebels and that's why we needed to get the letter in the first place. That's not exactly something I should be forgetting, considering it's the driving force in this very important mission that could end in war if we fail. I need to work on that.

***Scene Break***

"We're finally at the hotel," Guiche says as he breathes a sigh of relief and gets off of his horse. "And it only took almost an entire day."

"I'm just as relieved, but I have to ask what are you two doing here again?" I ask Tabitha and Kirche.

"That's a funny way of thanking someone for saving your life," Kirche remarks.

"Helping," Tabitha says.

A little bit before we got to the hotel, about 20 minutes ago, we were ambushed by some bandits and Tabitha and Kirche rode in on Slyphid, and blew the hell out of those bandits and saved us a lot of trouble. That didn't really explain why they were staying and joining a secret mission from the princess, but I guess I should be glad we've got more help.

"I guess it doesn't really matter," I say. "We're here and we've got two days before the ship takes off. I think we'll be fine."

Wardes and Louise come out of the hotel. "We were able to book three rooms," Wardes tells us.

"Awesome, one for every two people," I say. "How are we dividing up the rooms?"

"Tabitha and Kriche will get a room," Wardes begins, "Joshua and Guiche will be sharing a room and Louise and I will share the last room.

Louise blushes a furious shade of red and turns to Wardes. "B-but Wardes, we're not married yet! We can't share a room!"

Wait, she didn't know she and Wardes would be sharing a room? Did she just assume that me and her would share that room instead? I'm not entirely sure what to think of that.

"There's something important I need to talk with you about," Wardes says expecting that to answer all of our questions.

***Scene Break***

"Why are we here?" Derflinger asks me.

"Well that's the eternal question, isn't it?" I tell him. "Were we put here by some higher power or did we just randomly develop in the one in a million chance of evolution spawning us just the way we are? If the former, then why were we created? What is our purpose? If the later, then how lucky can we consider ourselves that out of every single possible branch for evolution to take that we were what came out? How do we live up to that? I'm atheist, but I am partial to the former, which is weird. It just seems more likely to me that someone created us instead of us just being chance, but that still doesn't answer the question of why were we created? What purpose did our creator have in mind when he brainstormed us?"

"Um, no. I meant why are we here outside the missy's window?"

"Oh, that. I don't trust Wardes," I tell the sword.

"Why not? Worried he's going to get to missy before you?" Derflinger asks while chuckling.

"What? No! It's because Wardes is the one most trusted by the princess on this important job. I've read these types of stories before, it's always the most trusted person who ends up being the traitor and no one saw it coming because they trusted them so much," I explain.

"So you're naturally suspicious of people high powers trust?" Derflinger asks.

"Pretty much. There's a higher chance of them being secretly evil. It never hurts to be safe, right?"

"If you say so, partner."

And with that, the conversation ends.

Unfortunately I can't hear them clearly. I can occasionally make out a few words, but no coherent sentences. If I could activate battle mode on command, would it give a boost to my hearing? It boosts my eyesight, apparently, why can't it boost my other senses? I don't even know what it really is, why am I busy wondering what it does for me? For all I know it's a sign that being in this world is screwing with my brain and making me hallucinate. Oh well, it's still pretty awesome.

I don't know how long I stayed right outside that window, but it felt like at least an hour. Eventually I was satisfied that things were okay and fine. For that night anyway, you can count on me being back tomorrow. After all, you can never be too careful with the most trusted man.

"By the way," Derflinger asks. "How the hell did you get up here?"

"You missed me climbing up here using various jutting bricks and other makeshift handholds to work my way up here?" I ask him.

"I'm in a sheathe, I tend to miss a ton of things. How the hell did you manage to climb up three stories using only loose bricks and other things that were never meant to support human weight?"

"Personal experience, practice and a shit ton of inFAMOUS and Mirror's Edge," I tell the sword.

"And those last two are?"

"Personal favorites of mine. inFAMOUS 1 and 2 got tons of well deserved love, but everybody seemed to forget Mirror's Edge. I mean, even it's own company abandoned it in favor of the next big shooter of the season. I'm still waiting on the sequel that'll probably never happen and even if it does I probably won't be able to play it considering I'm trapped here," I explain.

Derflinger's silent for a minute. "So I take it they're things from your world that I'll probably never understand unless I actually saw them?"

I nod. "That's correct Derflinger! Hopefully I can find a way home so I can show you them. They're really great, I think you'd like them."

Well this conversation's over, so I think I'll head back to my room and get some sleep.

***Scene Break***

*Knock Knock*

Oh come on! I was having such an awesome dream! ... I think. Damn it! All I remember of that dream is that it was awesome, and I think it might have been embarrassing too. Maybe it's for the best that I don't remember the dream. Anyway, who the hell could want anything at... Let me look at the clock... 11 o'clock in the morning? I'm so glad they still have clocks in this world, though I suppose it would be kind of hard to tell time without them. How do these things work without electricity? It's clockwork right? By what sort of demonry does clockwork run without electricity? It's something I've never understood.

Guiche was busy sleeping on the floor because we were not sharing a bed and I was clearly more important then Guiche. That and I beat him in an arm wrestling match, rock paper scissors, punchies, and tic tac toe. The poor bastard never stood a chance. Guiche was still out cold despite the knocking, which meant I had to do it. Damn it, why can't anyone ever let me sleep in untill 2 in the afternoon like I used to during weekends?

I got up, walked over to the door and opened it to find myself face to face with none other then Wardes.

"To what do I owe the pleasure of this visit, Viscount?" I ask.

"Nothing much, I was just wondering if you were up for a duel," He tells me.

Well he sure is straight to the point. "A duel? For what reason?" I ask.

"Call it the curiosity of a warrior," _I don't think I will, thank you very much_, "But I was curious as to the strength of my fiancé's familiar. I simply wished to see how strong you were in a real battle."

"You want to fight me solely because you have no idea how strong I am? That's not the best reason I've ever heard of for picking a fight," I tell him.

"I'm not picking a fight," Wardes tells me. "I simply wish to judge your strength."

That still sounds like he's picking a fight, but what the hell, it's not like I've got anything better to do today.

"What the hell, challenge accepted," I tell him as I cross my arms in front of my chest. "When and where?"

Wardes smiles. "In the courtyard just outside, now preferably. Don't worry about the witness, I have that covered."

I'll bet he does. Still, this could prove to be fun. Or it could prove to be a horrible idea and hurt very much, but let's not dwell on that. Onwards! To the courtyard!

And now I'm on one end of the courtyard with Wardes on the other end. It's a rectangular courtyard, maybe 100 feet long and 50 feet wide. I never was good with measuring by sight so that's probably either an exaggeration or nowhere near. There were also some pillars strewn about as decoration which is always a nice touch.

"And the witness is where, exactly?" I ask as I pull Derflinger out of his sheathe.

"Don't worry, she'll be here soon," He tells me.

She? Well, that immediately answers who'll show up.

"Do you want to know something interesting while we wait for her?" Wardes asks me.

"Shoot."

"This courtyard was once used for duels between nobles before they were outlawed. Often these duels were over petty things such as an insult or a monetary dispute. Sometimes however they were fought over bigger things, such as a woman," Wardes tells me.

I raise an eyebrow. "Are you trying to imply something?"

Before Wardes can reply, Louise shows up. Called it!

"Wardes? Josh? What's going on here?" She asks.

"We're dueling and we needed a witness," I tell her. "He suggested it, not me."

"W-what? No! Absolutely not! Josh! I order you to put away your sword!" Louise yells at me.

I look at Wardes. "What do you think? Should I listen to her?"

Wardes shakes his head. "We've already come so far I think it would be a disservice to everyone to just stop the duel."

I chuckle. "Good, because I did not plan on listening to her anyway. So what are the rules? First to draw blood?"

Wardes shakes his head. "No, there are too many things that could go wrong. A simple stray strike or flung stone could end the match before either of us can assess the other properly."

I nod. "A very good point. So how about this, first to surrender or fall unconscious is the loser. Sound fair?"

Wardes nods. "Anything else you wish to add?"

"How confident are you in your swordplay?" I ask him.

"Very, why do you ask?"

"How about this, since you're a mage I'm not going to stop you from casting, but you can only cast one spell for the entire match. This way we're not completely taking away your advantage, but it's also rendering the gap between us much smaller," I say. "Sound fair?"

Wardes ponders for a moment. "Very well. Only one spell and if I use any more then I am disqualified."

I smile. "Sounds good. Ready to go?" I say as I assume a battle position.

Wardes nods and assumes a similar position. "I make a habit of letting my opponent have the first move."

And with that, the battle begins. I make my first move rushing in headfirst at Wardes. When I get within range I swing Derflinger horizontally, but he's easily parried by Wardes wand which doubles as a sword. I really need to come up with a name for that. Sword Wand?

After Wardes parries my strike, he tries to follow up with an overhead strike, but I sidestep and swing again. Wardes dodges and jumps back a step to create some space between us. I rush in again and swipe ate him diagonally towards the ground. He sidesteps in the direction of my swing and I completely miss. He spins to put some power in to his swing and aims it at where my head will be in a minute. In a feat of amazing swordplay I'l probably never be able to repeat ever again, I'm able to move Derflinger just in time and manage to deflect the strike off of the butt of Derflinger's hilt.

I don't even have time to think "That just ****ing happened!" Because I need to follow up. Duels are won by fighting, not thinking about how awesome you were. Since Wardes is kind of reeling from having his sword knocked back, I take the opportunity to aim a strike at his leg. He recovers just in time (of course) and manages to just barely dodge it. By just barely dodge it, I really mean that. I actually managed to cut slight tear in his pants. I hope they didn't cost a lot. If "You break it, you buy it," still applies here then I'm screwed because I do not have any money.

Wardes finally seem to realize that I am a bit of a threat at short range, and backs up a few steps. I take a few steps forward and start swinging.

"I must ask," Wardes says as he parries each of my strikes. "Do you have any sort of strategy?"

"Of course," I say as I attempt a slice at his chest, only for him to jump back causing me to miss by a mile. "Rush in head first and adapt to the situation as it changes."

I jump towards Wardes and bring Derflinger down in an overhead slice which he catches with his sword, bringing us into a deadlock.

"So you're just swinging your sword around haphazardly with no sense of strategy?"

"Correct. I mean, I could make a strategy," I tell him as I dodge a swipe, offer one of my own which promptly gets deflected. "But I find rushing in headfirst and beating everything senseless is much funner and easier."

"Do you know what that means?"

"Please tell me."

He pushes me away and points his sword at me.

"Air Hammer."

"Look out!" Derflinger yells at me.

I try to dodge, but the blast of air hits me with such force that I go flying backwards headfirst into one of the stone pillar decorations. I don't know exactly how hard I hit it, but there were some stone chips, I think I had a concussion, and I think my head was bleeding.

Wardes and Louise walk up to me. Wardes looks high and mighty, and Louise looks really worried.

I try to stand up, but pain shoot through me and forces me back into sitting down and leaning against the pillar. Louise runs up to me and kneels down right next to me.

"Are you okay?" She asks me.

"I've been better," I remark.

Louise turns to Wardes. "Wardes this duel was never fair. You're the captain of the griffon knights. Of course you'd be stronger then Josh!"

Louise, that doesn't really help me, but I appreciate the thought of trying to defend me. I think that's what you're doing anyway.

"I don't see that as an excuse," Wardes says as he turns and walks away.

"I don't believe you told me the answer to that question of yours," I say, prompting Wardes to stop in place.

"It means you aren't capable of protecting Louise."

In the next instant a small rock hit Wardes in the back of the head. He turns around and finds me standing with Derflinger at the ready.

I was _pissed._ This son of a bitch was going to suggest I can't do my job? That I'm not good enough to protect Louise? He thinks I'm nothing? Let's prove this bastard wrong, shall we?

"Never turn your back on an opponent Wardes," I tell him. "That's what gets you killed in battle."

"You wish to continue? Haven't we already proven who is the superior fighter here?"

"I don't recall ever conceding defeat and I'm still conscious. You're going to have to try harder if you want to win this."

"Josh! You can't seriously want to continue!" Louise yells.

"You ready Wardes? Round two's just getting started," I close my eyes, feel my blood start flowing, and when I open them, everything's blue except for Wardes who's highlighted in red and Louise is highlighted in a light blue.

What do you know? I can activate Battle Mode on command! Well, since I can activate it on command now I really should rename it. How about Heightened Awareness? I was aware of everything now, like that Louise was behind me and currently trembling with what I can only assume is fear, and that sounded a lot more awesome then Battle Mode, so let's go with that. Hurray for otherworldly powers that give boosts to your abilities!

"You're not going to back down, are you?" Wardes asks. "I can see it in your eyes."

I respond by running at Wardes who has his sword ready. But instead of running at him, I step to the side, and jump onto one of the pillars nearby. Once I connect with the pillar I push off to get some extra height and come down upon Wardes with an overhead strike. He tries to use his sword wand to block it, but the downward momentum is a bit too much, and his sword is knocked into the ground as I land with a resounding thud. I slice at Wardes, but he barely manages to block it. I try another three swipes in quick succession, but he manages to parry the first and block the other two. We get into another deadlock, but instead of having a nice little conversation, I proceed to jump in the air, do a flip, and land behind Wardes in a 10 point landing. I try a pierce on Wardes, but her manages to deflect my blade so it goes to his side and misses. I use the momentum I built up from my thrust forward to tackle Wardes with my shoulder and send him back up into a wall. I take another few steps forward and stick the tip of Derflinger at his throat as he lies plastered to the wall.

"Ready to concede defeat?" I ask him.

"I was going to ask you the same thing," Wardes tells me.

I look down and see that he has his sword wand pointed directly at my chest. Even if he can't use any spells, all it takes is a quick thrust and that sword goes right into my heart. However, all I need to do is the same quick motion and my sword pierces Wardes' throat.

"A stalemate," Wardes remarks.

"Indeed. I'm willing to call it a draw if you are," I tell the Viscount.

Wardes nods as much as he can with a sword pointed at his throat. "Very well. A draw."

I sigh in relief and put Derflinger back in his sheathe.

"Well, good match Wardes. Now if you don't mind, I think I'll take a nap."

Good thing I was able to bring out a draw, because I think that concussion finally caught up with me, because I fall backwards onto the floor and fall unconscious.

**Author Notes:**

Ariana: *Whistle* Is the moral of the story "don't piss off Joshua?" He beat down Wardes in like a single paragraph!

Uncreative: That was unintentional. It wasn't something I noticed until way after when I was proofreading. The PoP style wall jump, into a leap, into a slash was something I threw in to make it slightly longer.

Ariana: I like it. It adds style.

Uncreative: And that's the hard thing about action stories, people have their own style of fighting, so you need to make sure you write for that. Saito is more of a straight, charge in, fight, kind of guy. Shana's more of a "get the fight over as quickly as possible" kind of fighter, so I had to decide what kind of fighter Joshua is. I settled on a slight bit of show off, with him throwing in his parkour experience into his fighting to mix things up.

Ariana: He should be in the next Prince of Persia game.

Uncreative: Don't I wish.

Ariana: One thing that bugs me though is that "Heightened Awareness." I just want to go up and slap Josh and yell "It's Eagle Vision, you dolt!"

Uncreative: It bugs me too, but there's no way for him to know that considering he doesn't even know the assassin's exist. And that's all there is to it.

Ariana: I would also like to take this moment to point out that nobody in this recording room has played Mirror's Edge. To completion anyway. We've both played the demo. I hate it.

Uncreative: I like it. Anyway, I don't think we really have anything else to say. We're done here.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Finish What you Started!**

"You want to know something weird about my planet, Derflinger?" I ask my awesome talking sword that is currently strapped to my back.

"What might that be?"

"We only have one moon, and it's nowhere near as awesome as the two this planet has."

Derflinger chuckles. "Only one moon. Your planet's weird my friend."

I laugh. "I still think this planet's weirder, what with the mages and everything."

It had been a few hours after the duel with Wardes and I was leaning against the railing of the balcony of the hotel we were staying at looking up at the two moons. One blue moon, one pink moon. Beautiful. I'm no poet, on account of having no idea what constitutes written words to become poetry, but these moons were almost convincing me to give it a shot. I almost wish I had my phone so I could take a picture.

"So what are you going to do?" Derflinger asks me.

"What do you mean?"

"Are you going to search for a way back to your world or not?" Derlfinger asks me.

"I don't know. I mean, I want to go back, don't get me wrong. I just don't know if it's possible," I say to him. "By all means I shouldn't even be here. The only reason I'm here is that summoning spell, and there's no such spell that works in reverse. If we had a teleport spell of some kind then maybe I could go home, but that would require a ridiculously powerful spell and knowledge of where my world is. If my world's in a different universe then no teleport spell in existence can get me there. If I find anything that tells me it's possible to get home, then I'll definitely work on it. For now, I say we burn that bridge when we come to it."

"If you say so. If I were you that'd be my top priority."

"Don't misunderstand, it is a priority, I just don't know if it is possible so it's a bit lower."

"And what's high priority?" Derf asks.

"Things I know are possible, like getting the letter from the royalty in Albion and making sure Louise doesn't die," I tell the sword in an almost matter of fact voice.

"You sure are hellbent on protecting the missy, aren't you?"

Are you trying to imply something?

"Well, I'm her familiar, so isn't that my job? Isn't it only right to make your job a top priority?"

"Most jobs don't pay out with whips and withheld meals."

"An excellent point, but an ultimately moot one considering the runes state that I'm kind of locked into the job."

"Good point. And if she dies and the contract's destroyed you don't get those awesome powers anymore," Derflinger says.

"And it'd be a shame if I wasn't Gandalfar and couldn't even lift you without assistance."

Derflinger's silent for a minute.

"What's the matter Derflinger?"

"... Nothing. I just thought I remembered something. Gandalfar's a very familiar word."

"The pun was unintentional, right?"

"As far as you know."

With that we both shut up and look at the twin moons.

Eventually I hear footsteps and turn around and see Louise approaching me.

"Hello, Louise," I say casually. "Fancy meeting you here."

"I was just worried. Are you feeling okay?" she says.

Louise worried about me? If only I could provoke this reaction out of her whenever she starts going to town on me with her whip. Still, it is nice that she shows at least a shred of humanity towards me.

"I'm feeling fine. I just needed a rest after the duel," I tell her. "I'm still not really used to fighting, so it still takes a lot out of me." That and I had a minor concussion and was bleeding pretty heavily during that last part of the fight, but water mages always fix things up just fine. Thank god for healing magic, for it has no limits. Well, I think it stops at raising the dead, but I'll take what I can get in terms of healing. "But enough about me, are you feeling alright?"

"What do you mean?" She asks, her voice laced with curiosity.

"Well, you nearly witnessed your fiancé kill your familiar. Most people aren't too happy when they see things like that," I tell her.

Louise huffs and looks away. "I-it was your fault for accepting. You could have said no and nobody would have thought any less of you. Why did you say yes?"

"Because-" I stop when I realize I don't know why I said yes. Why on earth did I agree to duel Wardes even when I knew it was most likely a futile effort? "That's a really good question." I say as I simply gaze up at the moon.

"Really? Both of you?" Derflinger says.

"What do you mean?" Louise and I ask at the same time.

"Partner here clearly did it to impress missy!" Derflinger says, prompting both me and Louise to blush.

"Wh-what!" Is the reaction we both had in response.

"Partner here thought that if he could show up the Viscount in a contest of strength then missy would dump Wardes and go with him instead!" Derflinger says with complete seriousness.

"W-wrong!" I yell at the sword. "Completely, utterly wrong!"

"Y-yeah! Of course you're wrong you stupid sword!" Louise adds. "Why would Josh even think of such a thing?"

"Agreed! I have no reason for wanting Louise to date me instead of Wardes!"

At that Louise pouts. "Are you saying you don't like me?"

Louise, statements like that don't help either of cases against Derflinger.

"I-it's not that I don't like you, I just don't like you in that way and you're already arranged to be married and all that," I manage to spit out.

"Right, of course," Louise says while nodding and not looking at me.

Derflinger laughs. "You two are just crazy about each other."

"SHUT UP!" Me and Louise roar at the same time.

Me and Louise sigh in anger simultaneously.

"Well," I begin. "Since we are kind of on the topic, are you going to go through with that marriage?"

Louise is silent for a minute. "I don't know. Wardes is by all means a good man. He's kind, he's strong." _He's at least a decade older then you and looks like he's in his 50s_, "I have no reason not to marry him."

"So is that a yes, you'll marry him, or what?" I ask.

"Why are you so interested in who I marry?"

"You're 16, right?" I ask.

"Yes, what does that have to do with anything?" Louise asks a little impatiently.

"In my world, specifically the country I come from, the age of consent is around 18, so to me you're still underage," I tell her. "Underage marriage is also rather frowned upon."

"Really? Here you're considered an adult when you turn 16, and marriages are set up as early as 6," Louise tells me.

Well that's interesting. That explains why everyone's perfectly fine with this. It's all just my fault for being raised differently and having different views then them. Well, different strokes for different blokes, is how I believe the saying goes. Actually, isn't the age of consent for things like that as low as 13 in some parts of Earth? I never actually bothered to check consentment ages for other parts of the world. I really should have, considering we had the internet and everything.

"So are you going through with this arranged marriage?" I ask. "Since you are 16 and an adult here, doesn't that mean you're free to say no if you wish?"

Louise ponders for a bit. "That's just it. I don't know if I want to say no. Wardes... When I was little..." Louise's voice just kind of trails off.

Oh, so that's it! Louise has been crushing on Viscount since she was a kid! But now I have to ask, was she crushing on him because they were to be married, or were they to be married because she was crushing on him? And which came first, the internet or the trolls?

"Well, it's none of my personal business whether you decide to marry him," _I'll just hate him even more._ Wait, what? Why the hell did I just think that? I need to get my thoughts in proper order, and to do that I need pizza. As soon as we get back I'm giving that recipe to Emily so the staff can make it. THAT IS #1 PRIORITY! ... I really need to sort out my priorities.

Louise opens her mouth to respond, but is cut off when the balcony we're on starts rumbling. Oh shit, it's an earthquake! Oh, wait, it's only Rock Devil rising out of the ground right in front of us. Rock Devil? Fouquet should be in prison right now! Crap, someone broke her out.

"F-Fouquet!" Louise yells out.

"Nice to know she's still alive," I say. "I vote we regroup and plan out next course of action."

"I concur," Derflinger says.

I grab Louise by the standard female grab area (The arm, close to the wrist, you perverts) and we run back into the hotel. Only to find it being attacked by those bandits that tried to ambush us back in the canyon. So we've got a golem outside ready to eat us, and we're being attacked inside, and we don't have the element of surprise that Kirche and Tabitha brought. I have to give the bandits credit, this is a pretty well thought out plan.

Louise and I notice the rest of out group using a conveniently tipped over chest high table as cover. I knew it! I am a video game protagonist! Now all I need is regenerating health and checkpoints and all will be good with the world.

"What's going on?" Louise asks as we join our friends behind the table.

"Those bandits who ambushed us are attacking," Guiche says.

Well, we figured that. Actually, why did Louise even ask that? Ah well, it's not the time to ask that right now.

"By the way, Fouquet's outside," I tell the group.

"What?" Is their reply.

"I thought she was in jail," Wardes says.

"Yeah, well, us too. What do we do?" I ask.

Tabitha taps her staff against the floor to get our attention, then points at me, Louise, and Wardes.

"Go." Then she points at Guiche, herself and Kirche. "Distraction."

"You want us to just leave you here so we can go on and complete the mission?" I ask.

Tabitha nods.

"I don't like splitting up our group," Wardes says, "but I believe it might be out best shot. You have the letter, right Louise?"

Louise nods.

"Good, then we'll do that. Do your best to cover us," Wardes says.

Wardes seems awfully willing to leave half of out group here. My suspicions of him being secretly evil have jump up 16%. That or he's really committed to the mission, is willing to lay down his life for the princess and I'm just an asshole for thinking he could possible be evil. We'll see how this plays out.

Come to think of it, normally I'd be against things like leaving Guiche and Kirche in charge of anything remotely important, but Tabitha, whom I will now address as Nagato, seems capable. Godspeed Nagato! May you distract our enemies in peace!

So with those other three providing cover for us, me, Louise and Wardes ran for the port to catch our ship. This is the first time I've ever been worried about whether or not I'd make it to my flight early. Normally I'm worrying about being late. Same thing in practice, I guess.

Luckily for us we weren't that far from the port at all. Unluckily for us the port was located on top of a really tall hill so it could fly, and we had a whole lot of stairs to climb. They have magic to fly and they can't invent a simple high speed escalator? Hell, why can't we just have Wardes' Griffon fly us up these steps in seconds? For that matter, why didn't we borrow Slyphid from Tabitha to take us to Albion? Apparently it's not the time to worry about that.

We hit the steps and began climbing them as fast as our legs could carry us. Things were going well, nothing bad had happened. We were about a hundred feet up when we heard Louise scream. Damn everything! Can't we ever have a nice peaceful run for our lives?

We turned and saw that some guy wearing a white mask had was holding Louise with his wand pointed at her head. Look man, I know some people are desperate to get what they can, but she's clearly too young to be your wife. That and she's engaged, so you might want to look somewhere else.

"Let go of her!" I yell at the masked man. He responds by being silent and taking a single step back before starting to float away, as if to challenge me.

Sadly, I can't take that risk. The second I take a step he probably blows Louise's head off, and there's no way I can close the roughly 30 foot distance between us in time. Even if I could, there's no way I can attack him without hitting Louise.

Luckily, for once, Wardes is bound by no such restrictions and shoots a spell out of his sword wand that's accurate enough to hit the guy with the face without hurting Louise. He lets her go and they both drop like a stone. I dash forward and manage to catch Louise before she hits the ground. I put her down and charge after Masky, who's back up and trying to flee the scene of the crime.

I manage to catch up with him and I tackle him to the ground, which is unfortunately a flight of stairs, so we go skidding a bit before we end up right back at the bottom of the staircase. Are you telling me I have to climb all those stairs again? Shit.

Still, Louise and Wardes were still up there so it was just me and Masky, one on one.

"Okay, who the hell are you?" I ask as I point Derflinger at him.

He responds by raising his wand and waving it around a bit. I can't hear if he's chanting or not, but whatever he's doing it's causing a bunch of clouds to start forming around him.

"Um... Derf, should I be scared?"

Derflinger's silent for a bit before gasping. "It's lightning cloud! Yes, you should be scared!"

Unfortunately for me I don't get time to be scared, because Masky launches a lightning bolt at me. I raise Derflinger to try and cut it off and I manage to get the lightning bolt to connect with Derflinger, but that doesn't stop the electricity from starting to pump through me.

I felt like my entire body was being burned alive as wave and waves of pain just kept rolling over me. I cried out in pain as Masky kept pumping electricity into my body. At least that's what it felt like. In reality it was only a few seconds of being shocked, but it hurt like hell. Eventually the lightning ended, and I remember hitting the floor unconscious. Mental note to self: Lightning hurts, try to avoid it. I wasn't out for long, only a few minutes or so.

"Josh! Josh, are you okay?"

I woke up to hearing Louise calling my name and shaking me in an effort to try and get me up.

"Ugh," I groan as I sit up. "What the hell happened?"

"That masked man hit you with a lightning cloud spell," I hear Wardes say off to my right. "Honestly you're lucky to be alive."

"I figured as much. I meant what happened to the masked guy?"

"He fled," Louise tells me. "After me and Wardes arrived he disappeared using some kind of wind spell."

Oh, great, they do have teleporting spells here. Why has no one told me this beforehand?

"Well, that's good and all, but we have a mission to accomplish. I'm fine and ready to go" I say as I try to stand up, only to feel pain shoot through me. I ignore it and pretend nothing ever happened.

"Are you sure you're okay?" Louise asks me. "That was a really powerful spell."

"Indeed," Wardes says as he strokes his beard. "It seems your sword neutralized some of the current. What's it made out of?"

"No idea," Derflinger says. "I forgot."

Wardes raises an eyebrow. "A sentient sword? That's rather rare."

I chuckle and look at Louise. "And you said it was a terrible idea to get Derflinger. Now who was right? Josh: 1 point. Louise: none." I'm careful to avoid using the z-word around Louise, she takes it very personally.

Louise frowns. "If you can talk like that to your master then you're fine. Come one, let's go."

***Scene Break***

"Why is it that everything we do has to go as horribly as possible?" I ask as our new "friends" escort us to the captain's quarters.

So we made it to the ship, got it to take off, and headed for Albion, which I will rename Skyloft when I take it over one day, only for us to get hijacked by some of the rebels. Oh, and apparently my left arm was covered in third degree burns and was close to convulsing. Apparently lightning's bad for you. Go figure. Louise got all pissy because she thought I was hiding such a severe injury from her. The fact that she punched me in the face didn't exactly make me feel any better, but I did tell her that I wasn't hiding it on purpose. Hell, I have no idea how I didn't notice my arm was nearly cooked off. I really need to pay more attention to everything.

And that brings us to our current situation of being in the quarters of the captain and head of these pirates. How could things possibly go wrong?

The captain of the pirates was wearing a red bandana that cover the top left half of his face, but he appeared to be blonde and seemed like a nice young man. Well, except for the whole leader of a bunch of pirates that are going to kill us, but that's besides the point.

"So, who are you three supposed to be?" Captain asks us.

"We're ambassadors from Tristain with important business with the royal family of Albion!" Louise yells at the pirate captain. I can't help but feel it's not a good idea to tell him our real purpose here, considering it's a secret mission.

"Ambassadors?" Captain asks. "What message do you bring to the royal family?"

Louise crosses her arms in front of her chest and makes it clear she isn't saying anything.

"Are you willing to betray them and give us the message?" The captain asks us. "If so, then we might be able to arrange safe passage back to the ground for you three to get out of this place."

"I'd rather die," Louise tells him.

You know Louise, they can probably arrange that too. Then I notice that Louise is shivering. I get it now. Louise is terrified, but she's not backing down even though she's probably facing death. Why does that sound familiar?

"I'll ask again," The captain begins. "Are you willing to betray the nobles?"

Do most pirates ask if you're willing to betray someone? Don't they just ask for whatever it is you have instead of asking you to double cross whoever loaned you the goods? Or am I confusing them with something else? Either way, I think I should speak up before something worse could possibly happen. Paragon interrupt, go!

"She told you her answer already, what's the point in asking her again? It won't change a thing," I tell them.

The captain looks at me. "And who are you?"

"I'm her familiar," I tell them.

"Familiar? You're serious?"

"Why yes I am, why do you ask?"

All the pirate burst into laughter. "A human as a familiar? I knew Tristain had some weird nobles, but this is too much!" They cry as they start laughing.

"Trust me, no one there is happy with it either, especially the one stuck with me," I say prompting Louise to punch me in my good arm. Well, at least she's considerate.

Eventually the captain stops laughing and notices the ring of Louise's finger.

"Ah, that wouldn't happen to be the water ruby, would it?"

Louise tries to hide the ring. "So what if it is?" Yes, that's the perfect response to someone who's about to kill us. You learn fast, Louise.

"Then am I to assume that Princess Henrietta sent you?" He asks.

Louise remains silent, which the captain accepts as a yes. Silence gives consent, as they say.

"Then my apologies, I haven't introduced myself yet," He says as he unties the bandana around his head. "I'm Crown Prince Wales Tudor. A pleasure to meet you."

... Explain?

Wales seems to see the look of confusion on our face and laughs. "You're probably wondering why I'm disguised as a pirate. I guess it's for safety, as if that was still something that existed for someone like me."

"Um, pardon me," I say. "Are you sure you're Wales?"

Wales sighs. "I don't doubt you for not believing it's me. What's your name, girl?"

"Louise."

"Louise, would you please come here for a minute?" Wales asks her.

Louise steps forward, and Wales pulls a brown ring out of his pocket and puts it on. He then touches his brown ring to Louise's Water ruby, and they then perform a rainbow light show.

"This is the wind ruby," Wales explain. "Wind and water make a rainbow, a rainbow that connects the two royal families."

Aren't rainbows formed when light passes through water droplets and refracts into various different colors? How could wind possibly make a rainbow? Still, the ring is good proof as to who he is, so it's good to know we were able to make contact with the royal family. Actually, if I asked, could he get me some medicine? I think my arm is starting to go numb, and I'd rather much like to keep it, thank you very much.

***Scene Break***

Several hours and one medicine-less still numb arm later, me and Louise were meeting with Wales in private. It's not that I forgot to ask about the medicine, it's more that I never got the chance which is just as annoying.

"So, what message has Henrietta asked you to deliver to me?" Wales asks us.

Louise reaches into her shirt pocket and pulls out Henrietta's letter and hands it to Wales. Wales opens the envelope and reads the letter.

"Marriage? My Henrietta is getting... married?"

_My_ Henrietta? Oh come on, why is every named person I've run into, Tabitha and Emily being the exceptions, involved in or trying to be involved with someone in a relationship? Kirche wants me, Guiche wants Montmorency, Louise and Wardes are engaged, and Wales wants Henrietta who is supposed to marry the head of Germania. Do the love issues never end? Wait, aren't Wales and Henrietta cousins? ... This whole thing just got really creepy.

"I see," Wales says eventually. Instead of saying more he heads towards this treasure box he has, opens it, and pulls out a letter. The letter's all wrinkled, so he's either taken really bad care of it, or is constantly rereading it. Judging by the way he's handling it, I'm inclined to think the latter.

"Here is the letter Henrietta requests," Wales says as he hands it to Louise. "Please take good care of it."

Okay, now that we have the letter we burn it right? I mean, what else do we do, take it to Henrietta for her to frame it and put it on her wall? If this letter could completely destroy the alliance we've been trying to build with Germania, wouldn't it be better to just burn the letter right now before it could possibly cause trouble for anyone else ever again? Considering I'm the only one who thought of that, it must be a bad idea.

"Wales, I have to ask, what's in that letter that could possibly destroy the alliance?" I ask.

Louise kicks me in the shin. "Josh, show some respect! If Wales doesn't want to tell us then he doesn't have to!"

"I know, I was just curious and -Arrgh!" That last part was because Louise punched my third degree burned arm. I don't know if you've ever had a third degree burn caused by lightning cover your entire arm and then have someone punch it really hard, but it really hurts. In fact, I nearly collapsed right there.

"Okay, I was wrong about my arm having gone numb," I manage to croak out.

Louise gasps when she realizes what she just did. "I-I'm sorry! I forgot!" She turns to Wales. "Do you have any medicine for burns?"

Wales raises and eyebrow. "Is his arm burned?"

In response I push up my sleeve and show him my arm, and he actually recoils a bit. I don't blame him, my arm did not look nice. Dealing with heavy burns for several hours without treatment tends to do that apparently.

"How did that happen?" Wales asks.

"As crazy as it may sound, there are some people who don't want us to succeed in this mission," I tell him. "One such guy happened to hit me with a stray lightning cloud spell that nearly fried my arm off."

Wales looks impressed. "Lightning cloud? That spell usually kills and it only burnt your arm? That's rather impressive."

"Thanks, but it hurts way more then you can imagine."

Wales nods. "I believe we have some medication for burns here. I'll make sure you get some."

I thank him and let the matter of the letter drop. I'm really not to eager to have Louise punch me again and it probably isn't that important anyway.

***Scene Break***

"Derlinger, why are they doing this?" I ask.

"What, partying?"

"Yes. Aren't they about to march off to their death tomorrow? This isn't exactly a time to celebrate."

"I think it's a perfect time to celebrate being alive," Derflinger tells me. "After all, it isn't going to last much longer."

"Can a sword celebrate being alive?"

Derflinger chuckles. "Probably not, but that's not really the point."

So as you heard, the Skyloft Royal Family Army, was currently having throwing a massive party. There was wine, good food, and plenty of fun times. It would be better of they weren't doing it the day before they die, but I guess I'm not one to judge. Hell, if I knew I was going to die I'd at least try and have a bit of a good time or something, say my goodbyes and all that.

I didn't really participate in the party. I had caught up with Wales and tried to convince him to leave the land of the dragons and come back with us to Tristain, but apparently I didn't have enough paragon points to pick the charm option, because he declined. He said it was his duty to be with his men until the very end. I think Louise might have tried to talk him out of it as well, but she was apparently also unsuccessful. Damn it. I was really kind of starting to like Wales and he has to die tomorrow, and there's nothing I can do about it. Which led me to my current situation of standing in the corner and drinking some punch. I don't drink alcohol, bad things happen.

Eventually I noticed Wardes approaching me.

"Yes, Viscount?" I ask him.

"Will you be leaving early tomorrow or will you be staying with Louise and I?" He asks me.

"I guess I'll be going. You two have the griffon so I'm sure you can catch up." Hey, wait a minute. "Wait, what do you mean you two are staying?"

Wardes looks confused. "I haven't told you yet?"

Well clearly the answer is yes considering I'm asking.

"Me and Louise are being married here tomorrow in the grand church."

Cue spit take.

"I'm sorry, what?" I ask.

"As I said-"

"No, no! I know what you said, but why tomorrow? Isn't that the day the rebels invade?" I ask, my voice starting to shake with worry for some reason.

_I-it's probably because I'm worried of Louise's safety with the rebels invading and I don't want them to hurt her. Wait, why don't I want anyone to hurt Louise? It's because I'm her familiar, right? Right! That's the only reason,_ I think to myself, purposely ignoring the truth of the matter.

"Yes, but Wales has agreed to marry us early, before the rebels arrive," Wardes tells me.

"Well, thanks for telling me Wardes."

Wardes turns and walks away. Okay, so Louise is completely 100% safe, so why doesn't that make me feel better? ... One second.

I try to will Heightened Awareness back on, and I do manage to activate it. I think the reason I could never activate manually before was that I didn't know I could. Now that I know, it's really simple. You just focus and it works automatically.

Everything's once again blue, with only a few select people highlighted. I can make out Louise and Wales, both highlighted in light blue, in the crowd, but what confuses me is Wardes. He's highlighted in red.

I think back to try and remember who else was highlighted in red. Guiche's valkyries during our duel were red, and so was Fouquet's golem, with both Guiche and Fouquet highlighted in yellow. Wait! I think I get it!

"I got it!" I practically yell as I deactivated HA mode. Luckily everyone's too busy to hear my outburst.

"Got what?" Derflinger asks me.

"Light blue means ally, and red means enemy! Yellow is those that I have to take out to accomplish the mission! That's why Louise, Tabitha, Kirche and Wales are blue, because they're helping me out, and why Guiche and Fouquet were yellow! To win the duel I had to take out Guiche, and to get the Staff of Destruction back I had to take out Fouquet! And that explains why the valkyries and golem were red, because they were enemies that were getting in the way of the mission and wanted to kill me!" I starting blurting out at machine gun like speeds.

"What are you talking about partner?" Derflinger asks, but I'm on too much of a roll to listen to him.

"But then why was Wardes red? He was red during our duel, but that's because we were technically enemies. But then shouldn't he have been yellow since to succeed I had to take him out? Unless... Right! It wasn't necessary! I didn't have to take him out in order to complete the mission of getting the letter and returning it to Tristain, that duel was just a diversion! But that doesn't explain why he's still highlighted in red now. Is he plotting something? Maybe-"

"Partner!" Derflinger yells at me. "What are you blabbering on about?"

"Oh, um... Sorry. I think I just figured something out. Can you keep a secret Derf?" I ask him.

"I'm 6000 years old. I've been keeping secrets longer then you've been alive."

And so I told Derflinger about Heightened Awareness and how certain people are highlighted in different colors.

"Any idea what it is?" I ask after I finish explaining.

"Not a clue, I've never heard of anything like it. Still, if you're right and red means enemy, and that Wardes fella is still red, then we might have a problem," Derflinger says after thinking it over.

Well I can't say I expected Derflinger to be of any help considering his age and memory, but it would have been nice if he could just point me in the right direction or something.

***Scene Break***

"Damn it, where's my room again?" I ask as I stumble around the dark hallways of the Skyloft Royal Family's outpost in the middle of the night.

Wales gave each of us our own room to sleep in for the night, and I was currently looking for mine. Despite the actual army apparently being pretty small, the place was large enough for me to get completely lost it.

"I am never getting up to get a drink in the middle of the night again," I mutter to myself.

After about an hour of stumbling around in the dark, and I wandered into a hallway with three really large windows letting the moonlight shine through. Standing in the middle of the hallway looking out one of the windows, still dressed in her academy uniform, was Louise.

"Louise? What are you doing here?" I ask as I approach her.

She turns and I can see what looks like tear streaks trailing down her face.

"Have you been crying?" I stupidly ask. "What's the matter?" Please let it be that you don't want to marry Wardes. I'm far too suspicious of him.

Instead of replying, she collapses into my chest and starts crying some more. Completely by reflex, my arms wrap themselves around Louise in a hug. Completely by reflex. Really.

"Why... Why do these men celebrate when they're about to die?" Louise asks in between sniffles and sobs. "Can't they see there people who don't want them to die, yet they march towards their deaths?"

"I don't understand either Louise, but it's what they want," I tell her. "They want to defend their home until the very end, even when they know it's hopeless." Is that called bravery, or stupidity? Probably a bit of both.

"And what of Prince Wales?" Louise asks me. "Doesn't he see that Henrietta will be horribly saddened by his death?"

As sad as that thought is, it kind of creeps me out. Don't get me wrong, they have the right to love anyone they want, I just find the idea of cousins in a love relationship a little creepy.

"I did talk to him about it," I tell Louise. "He says he doesn't want to burden Tristain with an excuse for the Albion rebels to go to war."

"I-I'll talk to him again!" Louise declares. "I'll convince him!"

I shake my head. "I don't think that'll work. You and I both tried to convince Wales to leave and failed miserably. Wales clearly has an unshakeable resolve and is not going to leave this place alive," I say rather sadly.

"But-"

"Besides," I say, cutting her off. "Your only mission here was to get the letter and return it to the princess, nothing more."

"I hate it here," Louise says. "These foolish soldiers and unreasonable prince who leave everything behind."

Louise gasped, like she remembered something and reached into her pocket.

"Put out your arm."

"Um... Why?"

"Just do it," Louise said in a rather angry voice.

Hoping to avoid Louise's wrath, I stuck out my left arm and rolled up the sleeve, revealing the burnt arm. Now I'm sure the arm has gone numb, so I think even without medicine I'd be fine. Well, except for the sudden bursts of extreme pain that sometimes come about, but other then that it's fine.

Louise pulled out a small bottle filled with a semi glowing blue gel like substance.

"Wales gave me this bottle. It's medicine for burns," Louise tells me.

About freaking time! Screw the numbness, I want my arm fixed!

Louise then proceeded to start applying the medicine. I recoiled at the first touch, because it really stung, but eventually it started feeling a lot better. You know, I don't think I've seen Louise be this gentle with me. Oh shit, a tender moment. I can finally classify Louise as a tsundere now that I've seen the actual dere side! Now I can't help but wonder what caused it to spring forth. I guess I have technically saved her life once or twice, so I guess rescue romance is a viable option. At least it would be if Louise was even remotely attracted to me, which she isn't, and is only doing this because I'm her familiar and it's her job to take care of me like this.

Eventually Louise finishes the application, and I have feeling in my arm again.

"Louise, have I ever told you how much I love the magic in this world?" I ask as I toy with my arm to make sure it functions properly.

She shakes her head. "No, I don't believe you have."

"Well I should. I really love the magic this world has to offer. It's amazing."

Louise smiles, but doesn't say anything.

"By the way," I say. "Wardes mentioned that you two were getting married, tomorrow."

Ah, shit. I shouldn't have said that. Louise smile instantly drops.

"W-well, ye-yeah, I guess we are," She mutters in a voice so tiny I have to strain to here her.

"Well, congratulations," I tell her.

She looks at me, clearly confused. "What's with that reaction?" She asks.

"What do you mean? Aren't you supposed to be happy for people when they get married?" I ask. "Isn't it supposed to be the happiest day of your life, or something like that?"

I could have sworn I've heard people say things like that. Marriage is something I've never understood. What's so big about saying a few words then kissing someone in front of a priest? Now if it was in front of an actual angel and the angel gave the blessing, then I can see it being a freaking awesome marriage. Why go through a low ranking middle man when you can get a god's blessing straight from one of it's direct subordinates?

Louise looks away. "R-right. Happiest day of my life."

She silent for a minute. "I'm sorry, I have to go now." She mutter something about having to think before she runs off.

I sigh in frustration. Not because I'm upset at Louise marrying Wardes, but because I'm right back in the situation I started in. I have no idea where the hell I am, or where my room is.

"Damn everything," I say as I start walking in the direction opposite the one Louise ran off in.

***Scene Break***

Here it is, the day of both the invasion and Louise's wedding, and here I was at the docks waiting to catch the first flight off of this floating chunk of rock.

"Partner, are you sure about this?" Derflinger asks me.

"Well unless you feel like base jumping, I don't see another way of getting back down to the mainland," I say.

"Not that, are you sure about leaving the missy and Wardes alone?"

I sigh. "I sure as hell don't know. I mean, I don't trust him that's for sure. Still, if anything goes wrong they have Wales there, don't they?"

"And you and I are the only one who even thinks he could be evil," Derflinger reminds me. "He could just sneak attack and win at any moment."

"I'd think we know if they won already. Besides, the wedding hasn't even started yet."

"Even on the off chance that Wardes is good, shouldn't you at least attend?" Derf asks me.

"For what purpose?" I ask.

"You said it yourself, a wedding is supposed to be the happiest moment of someone's life. Shouldn't you be there to support the missy and be with her to share her happiness?"

I think for a moment. Ah, damn it.

"Derflinger, where did you learn to debate like that?" I ask as I turn and start walking towards where the grand church is supposed to be.

He chuckles. "I've had practice with the shop keeper."

Perfect, I lost an argument with a sword and was attending the wedding of my master to her fiancé. Sure it was her happiest day ever, but it was turning to shit for me. At least it can't get any worse.

As I approached the door to the church I felt really stupid. Why was I here again? Well, it was too late to turn back now, so I knocked on the church door and opened it up. The first thing I saw was Louise and Wardes standing at the alter, with Wales in front of them. It only took a second for all of them to pull out their wands and point them at me.

I hold my hands up in surrender. "Hey! I'm sorry I don't have my invitation, it got lost in the mail!"

"Josh?" Louise asks, a look of relief on her face.

"What are you doing here?" Wardes asks, a look of irritation on his face.

"Well, I figured it wasn't right just leaving like I was planning on. After all, it isn't really right to abandon my master on her wedding day, now is it?" I say.

Wales nods. "I see. I see no problem with his being here. Any objections from the bride or groom?"

They both shake their head, so I take a seat in the front row and watch the wedding take place.

"You know," I whisper to Derflinger, "I've never been to a wedding before."

"Me neither," Derflinger tells me. "I have to admit, I really only convinced you to come here because I wanted to see one, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity."

"Good to know." That's very good to know. I have a selfish sword that I can't win an argument with. Well, shit.

Wales is playing the part of the priest guy who marries the two, and proceeds to ask the standard question: "Do you take this X to be your lawfully wedded Y?"

Wardes, of course, said yes almost immediately. So Wales turned to Louise and asked the same question. Unlike Wardes, Louise hesitates. She seems to be deep in thought about something or other, because she doesn't even show a sign that she heard Wales.

"Bride?" Wales asks. "Your response?"

Louise jumps a little, like she was startled by Wales' question. "I-I'm sorry, I was distracted."

By what, the nicely decorated floor? ... Actually this church does have a really nice floor. The tiles have a really nice color and shine to them.

"Then I'll ask again," Wales begins. "Do you take this man, Viscount Wardes, to be your groom?"

Louise hesitates for another second, and I have time to think that we'll be here for another year before Louise actually responds. Louise briefly glances over her shoulder in my direction, then looks like she made up her mind.

"I'm sorry," she says. "I can't do this."

No marriage? Success! Hell if I know what changed her mind, but I'm ecstatic and I don't even know why! Praise Madoka!

"Is today not a good time?" Wardes asks, a slight edge to his voice. "Another day maybe-"

Louise shakes her head. "I'm sorry Wardes, I can't marry you. I'm sorry for wasting everyone's time here."

You didn't waste my time, this was completely worth the price of admission! Hell, I would have paid to see it!

Wales nods and turns to Wardes. "Well, Viscount, it appears the wedding is over. I'm sorry."

Wales is awesome. I wish I could be that nonchalant about seeing a marriage fail right before my eyes before it even began. I can only hope.

Wardes looks like he's starting to panic and grabs Louise shoulders, and I feel my left hand immediately reach for my right sleeve. _Not yet. Bide some time, nothing's happening yet._

"Louise, you're just nervous. You can't seriously be refusing my offer?" Wardes asks her.

Louise shakes her head again. "I'm sorry Wardes. I may have yearned for you as a child, maybe even loved you, however it is different now."

YES! She doesn't love the bastard who's probably going to betray us! Today is shaping up nicely. I am very happy right now.

"The world Louise!" Wardes shouts. "I will have the world and you are necessary for that!"

Um... Has Wardes just forgotten me and Wales are here? Because it kind of seems like that. Why do people here seam to forget I'm there until I point it out?

"Wh-what are you talking about?" Louise asks in a scared voice.

"I will have the world and you and your power is necessary for that!"

Louise does have magic? News to me, though I guess explosions are their own kind of magic.

"I have no talent as a mage," Louise says.

"I told you, you have just yet to realize your potential!"

Where was I when this conversation happened? Oh yeah, just outside their window, hoping to catch a glimpse of any kind of conversation they were having at the hotel. Looking back that was kind of a waste of time.

"Now I'm even more sure of it," Louise says. "I'd rather die then marry you."

Louise, please, don't tempt him with propositions like that. It makes me nervous.

"I've heard enough," Wales says. "Wardes, step away from her or I will use force."

Wardes sighs, lets go of Louise's shoulders and steps back. I keep one hand near my right sleeve the entire time.

"Such a shame," Wardes says. "It appears I am incapable of completing the first of my goals."

"What goals?" I ask, afraid to move from my spot for fear that he'll snap and kill everyone here on the spot.

"You see, when I arrived here I had three goals," Wardes begins.

"I knew it!" I say. "Listen up Derflinger, this is where he tells us his evil plan."

"I think you're right partner. I guess I owe you five gold."

"We never made a bet and you don't have any money."

"May I continue?" Wardes asks in an annoyed tone. I motion for him to proceed.

"As I was saying, I had three goals. The first was Louise, which doesn't appear to be achievable."

"Absolutely not!" Me and Louise yell at the same time.

Wardes chuckles. "A shame. The second goal was the princess' letter. The third,"

Wales seems to realize something, because he pulls out his wand and begins chanting a spell. Wardes pulls out his sword wand as well.

_Now?_

"Was your damned life Wales."

_Now!_

Wardes makes a moves to stab Wales, and the distinct sound of metal stabbing flesh is heard, followed by a scream of pain.

_Heh, Wardes screams like a little girl when he gets hurt._

All present watch the scene that just unfolded in front of them, which happened to be Wardes' sword just inches to the right of Wales throat, with a knife impaled in Wardes' hand.

I'll admit it, I stole the kitchen's knife. After the duel with Guiche I wanted to have a means of defending myself just in case something like that happened again, so I took the knife and kept it hidden in my sleeve ever since. I hadn't counted on Louise buying me a sword, but I still kept the knife hidden in my sleeve as a sort of an ace in the hole if I ever needed a projectile to throw and a Kyubey wasn't present. Now I'm really glad I did, thought I didn't really think I'd end up using it. As useful as that was, I don't think I'll make a habit of keeping knives hidden in my sleeve. It was really uncomfortable, and I'm all out of tape. It was a hell of a shot though. I never knew I was this accurate.

Still, Wardes had apparently been prepared for something like that, because he releases a spell he had been storing and a shockwave of wind comes out of his wand. Having been so close to it's epicenter, the shockwave sends Wales flying backwards into a wall. He hits the wall and stops moving. I can still see his chest rising and falling, so he still alive, just unconscious. Thank god for that. I know he's going to be dead one way or another when the day's over, but I don't know what I'd do with myself if he had died and I could have prevented it. However, we have another problem: Wardes.

I draw Derflinger and run in front of Louise who had been slowly backing away from Wardes. Wardes pulls the knife out of his hand, tosses it aside and turns to us.

"Clever," He tells me. "How'd you know I was never working with you?"

"Just a hunch, but I've learned to trust my hunches," I tell him. I wasn't telling everyone here about Heightened Awareness, that would be a bit too difficult to explain.

"You realize you leave me with no choice but to kill both of you and take that letter by force, right?"

"Um... Louise, can I ask something?"

"Is the really the time to be asking questions?" Louise asks me angrily.

"Probably not," I admit. "Anyway, is this the part where I'm supposed to say, 'Wardes, I will not let you lay so much as a hand on my master,' or something along those lines?"

This is when I play the part of the big damn hero, right?

I think I see Louise blush slightly, but she turns and looks at the unconscious Wales, so I can't really tell.

"Y-yeah, say something like that," Louise tells me.

"Got it," I turn and look at Wardes. "Wardes, I sill not let you lay so much as a hand on Louise. Got it?"

Wardes chuckles. "Yes, I do believe I get it. A familiar's unrequited love for it's master truly is a terrifying thing," Wardes says in yet another of this world's failed attempts at sarcasm. They make it far too obvious sarcasm is what they're going for! You need to be subtle about it.

Ignoring that for a minute, both me and Louise blushed slightly at Wardes statement.

"We are not in love!" we both yell at Wardes.

"It's just that I'm her familiar, so should I want to protect her?" I reply, slightly nervous for one reason or another.

"E-exactly!" Louise throws in. "I-Isn't it only right that a familiar feels the need to protect it's master in any circumstance?"

Wardes chuckles. "Yes. Of course. Shall we begin? I do believe we have a duel to settle, don't we, Joshua?"

"Louise, get Wales and get out of here while I take care of Wardes."

"Absolutely not!" Louise yells at me.

"Then at least go stand by the wall or something so you don't get caught in the crossfire," I offer.

I just realized. Why isn't Wardes doing anything? I mean, I've given him plenty of opportunities to take a jab or something at me and try and catch me off guard. Damn, he's either really polite even in battle or knows that I'm waiting for him to attack. It's hard to say.

Louise hesitates, then runs over to the wall to give me and Wardes some room. With nothing in either of our ways, Wardes and I stare each other down, silently taunting the other into making the first move.

Eventually, Wardes decides that this is boring and rushes me. He must be using some kind of wind magic to speed up his movements, because there is no way a human can move that fast on his own, nor can a sword swipe move that fast.

Most likely thanks to the gandalfar runes, I'm able to react just in time. Wardes' sword wand was coming at me in a diagonal left downward swipe. I duck slightly, take a step to the right, spin on my heel and give the same slash, which manages to nick Wardes in the back.

Hmmm... I have an idea. Heightened Awareness on. I'm not entirely sure if it does boost anything other then vision, but I feel like it does. Maybe it's a placebo effect. I think it, therefore it happens, or something like that.

On it's own, what is HA telling me? Wardes is red and an enemy, Louise and Wales are blue and allies. What else can I gather from this. Why isn't this like detective vision in Arkham Asylum? Why can't I get detailed analysis about whoever I'm scanning? Damn. I'll have to rely on the scanning abilities of the _other_ greatest detective who ever lived. Hollywood blockbuster version preferably, considering his scan was actually used for battling for the most part.

_Okay, let's try this out and break things down while thinking in an over the top Brittish accent. Rule Brittania! Or something like that. What was I doing again? Oh! Right! My advantages: Wardes is probably really angry, which might make him sloppier then usual when it comes to fighting. He's also has an injured right hand, but like me he appears to be ambidextrous, so that doesn't help me as much as it could. Wardes' advantages: He has magic spells, can use as many as he wants (willpower reserves notwithstanding), I don't know what spells he has, what he can use, or how powerful they are. Also I have been in two sword fights before against Guiche's golems and Wardes duel. I fought him to a draw, but he was only allowed a single spell, and I probably surprised him when I got up for round two. Odds are stacked in Wardes' favor. What can I do to fix that?_

_Let's how psychic (or lucky) I am when it comes to analyzing people's fighting styles. Wardes appears to prefer straight swordsmanship rather then sticking back and spamming magic, which makes him better then 90% of people I play against in any online game ever. That being the case, he does appear to be using some kind of wind spell to speed up his movements to a degree. That would be a problem, but my gandalfarness speeds up reactions and movement (I'm assuming, because there's no way I'd be able to counter like that in normal circumstances) thus neutralizing his benefit. Point for me._

_Now for the actual plan breakdown. I just managed to strike Wardes and cut his back a bit, and he's currently still reeling from that which is why I can use this opportunity to think. After Wardes recovers from that attack, he'll most likely attempt to retaliate with some form of swipe. Judging by his first strike, it'll most likely be at least downward in nature, since Wardes appears to like that direction for swinging his sword. I'll counter with a parry, then try to pierce and catch him. He'll probably summon a gust of wind to blow him back and just out of reach of Derflinger, then he'll probably blow himself forward and counter with his own pierce. Sidestep, then step forward and punch Wardes in the face to knock him off balance, and go in for a swipe. Aim for the shoulder, neutralize his sword arm. If he can't fight back, then the battle is won, right?_

_Wait.. He's probably expecting me to aim for his sword arm. Keeping that in mind, he'll likely have a spell or something to either push me back or otherwise neutralize me to keep himself safe. Assuming it's some kind of wind spell that creates a gust and pushes things around, he'll definitely use it on me to keep himself safe. Depending on where I am when that happens, I'll either be knocked into a pillar, or just pushed back in which case I can rush forward and continue some kind of assault. For now, let's assume that I'll be knocked into one of the various pillars around. If that happens, I'll be stunned for maybe a second due to the force of smacking into stone at a potentially high speed._

_When that happens, Wardes will definitely move in for a killing blow, likely a decapitation to make sure I stay dead. Ignoring the fact that such an act would ruin any plans I have for the rest of my life and that Louise would be seeing someone killed in front of her, something I doubt she's seen much of in her life, that would also result in bad end #3 where Wardes wins and Tristain is screwed (#1 is deciding to do Kirche and Louise seeing which results in Louise murdering me, and #2 is Fouquet's golem stomping me, which I'm not entirely sure how to obtain, it seems to be a luck based event. That or it's based on relationship points, and I'd lose at zero trust)._

_Therefore, when Wardes goes for the decapathon's main event, duck. Simple solution. Once the blade goes over my head, take advantage of window of opportunity to finally get a good shot in at Wardes' arm. Assuming things go the way I hope they do, Derflinger will connect with Wardes' shoulder and sever the arm from it's original home. This should hopefully bring Wardes down to a state where he is unable to fight, securing victory._

Plan go, Heightened Awareness and British accent off. Sadly. Wait, what's the difference between a British accent and an English accent? Considering my plan worked as I imagined somehow and Wardes was currently kneeling on the floor, holding onto the stump that was once his arm, I think I've earned some time to wonder about things like that.

"You... Bastard!" Wardes growls at me as I stand over him.

"Hey now, no need for that kind of language," I say tauntingly. "I have to admit though, I'm actually kind of disappointed. I mean, I came up with 31 variations if you hadn't done exactly what you did, say a spell designed to draw me into your range as opposed to pushing me out of it to create distance. I didn't expect the one I first came up with to be the one to work! Though I do applaud the ending. That one made me switch to variation number 7 to end it, instead of relying solely on the first."

"Did you just spend all the time between our last duel and this moment brainstorming ways to defeat me if we ever fought again?" Wardes asks with a slight chuckle.

"What? No! I'm not a person to stay stuck on one single thing. Remember the beginning of the fight when I did that counterattack, sliced your back and you were stunned for about 3 and 6/25 seconds? I spent that time plotting out the battle, and various paths it could take, in my head."

"You came up with 32 different plans in a matter of seconds?" Louise asks, dumbfounded. "That's absurd!"

"Not quite. It's mostly the same plan, just with variations if it takes a different turn. Besides, I don't usually come up with that many variations. I can normally come up with around 47 in the span of 5 seconds, but Wardes recovered slightly faster then I anticipated, so I wasn't quite able to stretch out those few seconds as long as I would have liked."

"How do you do something like that?" Louise asks me.

"Well I played a lot of RTS games, so I became pretty good at making strategies in general. Practice made me able to come up with better plans more quickly. Strategy RPGs like Disgaea helped me hone the plans and make them more specific then 'charge in and kill everything using these units instead of those.' Playing quite a few visual novels made me able to mentally branch out and see what might happen if this action is taken. It's nowhere near as specific as being able to predict the future, which'd be awesome, but by analyzing a person's behavior, you can kind of tell what they might do next, or what might happen if they do this. It's all the result of around 7 years of practicing on things like that."

My friends keep bugging me to enter a Starcraft tournament whenever they hear that. "You'll do awesome! You'll win easily with all those plans of yours!" Not quite. It's still mostly just a spin on the same plan. If the original plan is flawed, then none of the variations will work. It's not something that'd win me a tournament.

Louise stares at me, dumbfounded. "So you're capable of doing things like that and planning things that quickly, so why don't you do that all the time?"

I shrug. "It's not fun, and it's way more simple to charge in headfirst."

Oh yeah. That too. That's a big reason I don't enter tournaments.

"You care more about fun then actually winning a potentially life threatening battle that could decide the fate of a kingdom?" Louise asks me.

"Well I planned something out now, didn't I?"

"You... Make the mistake of thinking I'm through!" I hear Wardes shout.

"Well... Yeah," I reply while turning to Wardes. "I mean, you're missing an arm. You have an ace in the hole or up that remaining sleeve of yours?"

In response, Wardes stands up and chants a spells. Suddenly, there are a total of four Wardes, and three of them have a full set of two arms.

"Wind clones?" I ask. "Interesting. However, I'm actually kind of tired of this place and want to get out, so would you mind if I make this quick?"

"What are you talking about?" The four averrunci of Wardes ask simultaneously.

"Give me a minute. Louise, what happens if a mage is casting a spell and then for whatever reason loses their wand?"

Louise thinks for a minute. "Um... I think the spell is cut off, because the flow of magic keeping it in existence is cut when the mage stops using their wand."

"Oh really? So if I get Wardes' wand away from him then the other Wardes will disappear?"

Louise nods. "Yes, I believe so."

That makes things easier. Now all I have to do is- what the hell, why are the Wardes chanting something? Wait, shit! All this standing around doing nothing gave Wardes enough time to chant something probably huge! Well damn. I really should pay more attention to everything around me.

"Quick question, should I be worried about the spell the Wardes are casting?"

Silence, which Derflinger breaks. "Yes and no. It's lightning cloud-"

"Lightning cloud!" Louise asks, panicking. "The spell that badly burned Josh's arm?"

Thank you for reminding me of that pleasant time wondering if I'd lose my arm.

"Yes," Derflinger confirms. _Ah shit. _"However, I happen to have remembered something that might be incredibly useful. Partner! Raise me up!"

I lift Derflinger into a defensive pose, and four streams of lightning come from the four Wardes. However, when the lightning gets close enough, they're absorbed into Derflinger, and it's like the lightening was never there. Everyone's silent for a few seconds.

"Holy crap, my sword has imagine breaker built in." Now nothing can stop me from taking over the world! Muahaahahahahaha!

"I'm not sure what you're talking about," Derflinger tells me. "What I do know is that I can absorb all the magic around me, technically neutralizing it."

I turn to Louise and grin. "And you said getting Derflinger was a terrible idea."

Louise huffs and turns away from me. "We've had this discussion already."

"Ah, you're right. Josh: 2 points. Louise: none. When can I cash in my points for a coupon that excuses me from one whipping?"

"Shouldn't you deal with Wardes first?" Louise asks angrily.

I observe that I'm not too far away from that knife I threw a while back. I walk over to it, kick it up and grab it out of the air. I give it a good toss, and it goes spinning end over end until it implants itself in the shoulder of the still frozen with shock Wardes. He screams out in pain like a little girl again. I take that moment to run up and knock Wardes' wand out of his hand, and I give it a kick to knock it as far away from Wardes as I can before joining back up with Louise. Wardes whistles, and a griffon bursts through the window.

"The mission may have been a failure, but mark my words. Reconquista-"

I shut him up by toss a small piece of ruble caused by the battle at him, which nails him square in the head. He responds by glaring at me angrily, pulling the knife of his shoulder and tossing it at me. It implants itself in the ground around 27.36 feet away from me.

"Your aim sucks by the way!" I yell at him as his griffon flies away.

Well that was fun. Now what? We're stuck with an unconscious Wales, and no way off this rock.

"Louise, see if you can find a way out or something, I'll check on Wales."

Louise nods and goes off to see if the front door or something will open. In the meantime, I go and shake Wales away.

"Hey, buddy, you still in the land of the living?" I'm not Sissel, I can't revive you if you die, so please do your best to not die.

Eventually, Wales' eyes flutter open, and he looks at me.

"Ah. It's you. Am I to assume you were successful in driving off the Viscount?" He asks me as I help him up.

"Yes, actually. He was surprisingly predictable in his movements. And since I know you're probably thinking it, no, I'm not going to try and convince you to come with us. I already know that there's nothing I can say or do that'll convince you. Instead I shall ask you if there is anything last requests or words you would like to say."

Wales chuckles. "You make it sound like I'm being executed. Do you ask that of all the people you know are heading off to their certain death?" _Yes. But considering I've rarely been in a life threatening situation..._ "Nevertheless, I do have a request." Wales takes off his earth ring and hands it to me. "Give this to Henrietta. Tell her I lived bravely and died bravely."

I nod and take the ring from Wales and slip it into my pocket. Wales turns around and leaves, so I rejoin with Louise.

Before either of us can say anything though, we feel a slight rumble in the ground. We exchange a confused glance, which lasts about a second before a hole opens up in the ground which Verdandi pops out of.

"Wha-" is all I get out before Guiche pops out of the hole as well. Again, what?

"Verdandi, what a you doing... Josh? Louise? What are you doing here?" Guiche asks when he notices us.

"Escaping. Come on Louise, let's go!"

I grab Louise's wrist and jump down the hole with Guiche. Unfortunately, that hole led down straight onto Slyphid. Not the most comfortable landing. Not much better when Louise Happened to use my lap to cushion her fall. That's going to hurt in the morning, isn't it.

"Tabitha? Kirche? What are you doing here?" Louise asks as Guiche also climbs out of the hole and joins us on Slyphid.

"I was going to ask the same thing," Kirche responds

"Sounds like we've all got some nice stories for each other. Let's use 'em as travel food while we get as far away from this place as possible," I throw in.

And so, Nagato got her pet dragon to start flying us back home as we all exchanged our stories of out great adventures in Skyloft. It was all very interesting.

I'll say one thing though: I'm so glad I never have to set foot in that chuck of rock again!

**Author Notes:**

Uncreative: This took far too long to get out, and I apologize for that.

Ariana: Maybe it had something to do with you deciding to completely rewrite the entire ending from scratch.

Uncreative: Well, yeah. The entire battle with Wardes, and a little bit before that, was not always what you just read. Before, it sucked. And I realized that so I completely rewrote from the ground up, which took a little bit longer then it should have.

Ariana: Anyway, I feel this was kind of a "take that" at the people who pointed out how you killed Wales in both your previous stories despite having the capabilities to save him.

Uncreative: Not really. They all had fair points. I could have saved Wales, but didn't due to sheer laziness. I did wonder what would happen if Wales stayed alive, but then I remembered that he'd march straight off to fight off the rebels and die anyway. Failure is his only option.

Ariana: Damn. Sucks for him. Sucks even more for Wardes, what with the being curb stomped by Josh.

Uncreative: Honestly I kind of hated writing that part because it wasn't fun, but it makes sense. Josh said last chapter that he could plan things out like this, but it's nowhere near as fun. It works that way from a writing point of view too, I find writing much more fun when I make stuff up on the spot. It somehow manages to work in my favor most of the time as well.

Ariana: You really suck at this, don't you?

Uncreative: It's a pleasant day when my own original character observes that I suck at this.

Ariana: Sorry. Anyway, how'd Josh keep that knife in his sleeve? It couldn't have been easy.

Uncreative: Josh keeps some tape in his pocket at all times. Unfortunately he used the last of it in making absolute sure that the knife doesn't fall out of his sleeve.

Ariana: Why does he do that?

Uncreative: I don't know. I know a guy who keeps electrical tape in his backpack all the time, so it is something that's done by people in real life, I can vouch for that.

Ariana: I think we're done here. I'm calling it right now. Next chapter, Joshua finds a piece of eden and the plot completely derails and becomes a deeply insightful and meaningful deconstruction of the very fabric of fan fiction! Watch it!

Uncreative: I find myself unable to write deconstructions, I'm not even entirely sure what goes into making one. Also, this story's text. You read text, not watch it.

*Smack*

Uncreative: OW!

Ariana: Watch it!


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five: Planes, wars, and stuff blowing up!**

After our mission in Skyloft was finished we reported back to the princess and told her all about the mission. It went about as well as you'd expect. It didn't exactly help that right in the middle of our meeting a messenger owl came in with the results of the battle: Every single one of the royal army's forces was killed. No survivors. Wales was taken captive and executed by having his throat slit in front of a live audience. Henrietta took the news about as well as you'd expect. I gave her the wind ruby and told her Wales last words and all that, and I think I managed to calm her down. As a reward for our efforts we got a verbal apology for putting us in danger and a thanks for our efforts. You know I'm used to getting nothing in return by this point, so this really doesn't bother me.

After the meeting we all headed back to the academy for some rest and relaxation while we waited for something else to go wrong and require our help to fix. Oh come on, we all know it's going to happen, no use denying it. It was late when we got back to the academy so we all went straight to our rooms and fell asleep. You know, I never thought I'd miss this pile of hay I call my bed. Sure it cements my status as being worth less then a human at being forced to sleep on the floor, but it was really comfortable.

It must have been a bit later then normal when I woke up, because I think that was the sun shining through the window. _Oh shit! Louise is going to kill me! _Louise doesn't like it when I sleep in later then her. Being a familiar it's apparently my job to wake her up like an alarm clock so whenever I slept in and forgot to wake her, denied meal. _I better get her clothes ready and everything. Hopefully she's still asleep._

So I sat up to begin the day, only to see Louise, dressed only in her camisole and panties, fishing through her closet.

"What are you doing?" I ask her.

"Eep!" Louise says as she jumps into her closet and hides behind the door. "T-turn around!"

Um... What?

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I said turn around!" Louise yells out from inside the closet.

Not wanting to risk angering Louise any more, I turn around and face the wall. _Is Louise showing something resembling embarrassment? No freaking way! What the hell happened? Hell if I care, I don't have to play dress up with her anymore! I'd say this is a good thing._

So that happened, Louise actually removed a job that I normally have to do. Well, it's probably just a phase, I doubt she'll keep being this nice. I can't really say I'm disappointed. Sure I don't get to see Louise in various states of undress anymore, but it was always kind of awkward. Besides, shy Louise is actually kind of cute.

***Scene Break***

I love this classroom. It's a time for things to settle down a bit become almost normal and learn a bit about the world I'm currently in. So of course the second we walk in me and Louise were swarmed by a bunch of students who had apparently at some point heard that we went on a mission of some kind and they all wanted to know details.

"Sorry, classified information," I try telling them. That doesn't stop them from trying though. How the hell does it work so well for Mikuru but fails miserably for me? I blame he moe-ness.

Guiche however, wasn't as keen as Louise, Yuki Tabitha (as I now call her), Kirche and myself were at keeping secrets.

"Guiche, say anything about the mission and the princess will hate you," Louise tells him. "You wouldn't want that, now would you?"

Guiche shuts up. Louise knows how the twist peoples emotions around her finger! But did you have to mention the princess? Now everyone is even more interested in information. Maybe a plausible lie will throw them off.

"It wasn't anything much," I say. "We just had to run a quick errand for the royal family." There, that should- no wait, that was the truth. Even better.

Guiche, Kirche and Yuki Tabitha back it up, mostly by nodding, and everyone feels dejected and goes back to their seats.

"It probably wasn't anything important," Says one student. Sore loser.

"Yeah, it is Louise the Zero we're talking about," says another. Please don't use the z-word around Master Louise, she doesn't like it.

"Right!" Says a girl I recognize as Montmorency. "Catching Fouquet was a fluke. Her familiar just accidentally drew out the power of the staff of destruction."

I don't think most commoners can "accidentally" use an all powerful magical artifact, and even if it was an accident, I still used it, so doesn't that count for something

As Montmorency walks past, I casually stretch out my foot. She doesn't notice and trips over it. She yelps, then hits the floor face first. Ah shit. Sorry! That was an accident! I didn't think you'd actually trip over my foot! My apologies!

She gets back up, her nose red from the impact with the floor, and points at me. "How dare you! I'm a noble!" _Really? I never would have guessed. _"How dare a commoner like you trip me!"

I open my mouth to argue and explain that is was an accident, but Louise beats me too it. "It was your fault for not paying attention where you were going."

... Did Louise just defend me? I expected a reaction closer to Montmorency's, considering she's a noble as well.

"You're siding with the commoner?" Montmorency asks Louise.

"Commoner or not, Josh is my familiar. Insult him and you insult me. Get it, Montmorency the Flood?" Louise asks with an edge to her voice.

Thank you Master Louise for being so nice and defending me. Also I'll have to make a note that calling Montmorency "the Flood" is apparently an insult.

Montmorency huffs and heads back to her seat. Maybe I should vocalize my gratitude to Louise, just so she knows I appreciate it. I'd hate her to think I was taking advantage of her and she goes back to being evil and whipping me.

I open my mouth to thank her, but then the teacher walks in and begins the lesson.

Today's lesson: Fire magic and it's applications. Today's teacher: Mr. Colbert, that guy who was there when Louise summoned me and when we were talking with Osmond about Fouquet. He seems like a nice, sciencey guy.

He was giving his take on fire magic and it's uses, and how he felt it could be used for more then burning things. As a demonstration, he brought out an invention of his. Ooooh! An inventor! This could be interesting.

So he brought out this metal box, lit some oil inside of it, and a snake puppet started moving up and down, up and down. He thought it was all amazing, but I was kind of like the rest of the student body, bored. I mean, it's a basic engine, what's so amazing about it? Wait a minute.

"Colbert! That's an engine!" I practically yell as I get out of my seat.

"Enjin?" Asks pretty much everyone in the room.

"Yeah! It's used back where I come from for all sorts of things like powering machines and different types of transportation, like trains and cars!" I say, my excitement growing. I mean, how could it not? It was an engine in an almost medieval environment! I wonder if they have guns here too. I can't imagine them not. Maybe they have some other types of technology, like someone working on an internet? Hot damn, I was excited! I miss the internet so much.

Luckily for me, Louise was there to pull me down from my high before I start blathering about how I'm not even from this world.

"What were you thinking with an outburst like that?" Louise asks me as she pulls me by my ear and forces me back into my chair. Ah, it's so nice seeing Louise all angry like that again. It seems so much more natural.

"Sorry, sorry. I guess I just got a little nostalgic, seeing something like that from my world," I tell her.

Louise looks away. "Right, your world. Recklessly summoning you at my convenience was a mistake."

Ah damn it, she's going through teenage mood swings. But what triggered that? Mood swings usually have some type of reason for existing, right? Unluckily I didn't have time to think about it, because Colbert decided to interrogate me.

"Really? Is that so? Where are you from?" He asks as he approaches me and Louise.

"He's from Rub' Al Khali in the East," Louise tell Colbert before I can respond. "Right Josh?"

"Um... Yeah I'm from- Wait, Rub' Al Khali?" My geography may suck, but I played Drake's Deception. Rub' Al Khali is a dessert on Earth, what the hell is it doing here? "I mean- Right! I'm from Rub!" I tell Colbert.

Colbert nods like he finds this interesting. "Interesting." _Didn't I just say that? _"I did hear that the people in the East have some forms of advanced technology."

Mr. Colbert walks back to his desk, but he still seems like he's in thought. "Would anyone care to try the... ahem, 'Engine?'"

I swear I hear a lightbulb go off over someone's head. Probably Montmorency's, considering she just pointed at Louise. "Why don't you do it, Louise? Louise the Zero?"

Oh no, we've got the z-word being mentioned twice in a span of 10 minutes. This room might be screwed. Louise's jaw clenches and she stands up. Hmm... Now's as good a time as ever to repay the favor, right? Time to put my hours as Commander Shepard and Phoenix Wright to good use.

"Hey Momo!" No reason for me calling her that, but Momo is a hell of a lot easier to pronounce then Montmorency. It rolls off of the tongue rather easily.

"It's Montmorency, get it right!" She yells at me.

"Momo sounds fine," I mention. "Anyway, why are you provoking Louise and calling her a zero? You hate being called 'the Flood' right? So then why are you calling Louise a zero?"

"In my case being called 'the Flood' is an insult, but for Louise it's a fact. Her success rate is zero!" Montmorency states.

"You're really sticking by that?" I ask. "Louise's success rate isn't zero, and I can prove it! I have one critical piece of evidence that supports my claim."

"Oh really? And what might that be?"

"I'm here, aren't I?"

Montmorency looks puzzled for a moment, then seems to realize what I'm saying. Cue Pursuit ~ Cornered 2001 variation please.

"You realize it, don't you? I'm here, Louise successfully summoned me with the summoning spell. She succeeded in a spell. How can you possibly say her success rate is zero when a spell actually worked? Not just that, but she made a spell designed to summon animals from the area bring forth a human from halfway across the world!" I say as I slam the table I'm sitting at, stand up and point at Montmorency for added effect.

"But I-"

"What's more," I continue, interrupting Montmorency. "Does the name Viscount Wardes sound familiar? Captain of the Griffon Knights and one of the more powerful mages in Tristain? He has personally stated that Louise has amazing power and potential as a mage, she has just yet to realize it. As proven by my being here at all, Louise can succeed at magic, and one of the most trusted assistants to the royal family agrees that she's an incredibly powerful mage! You honestly believe that "zero" is a suitable title for her when she's clearly capable of magic and has succeed at it?"

Final verdict in the case of Louise being a zero: not guilty. Having proved my point that Louise isn't a zero to the best of my ability, I sit back in my seat, simply observe the silence in the room and go over my mental case file. I didn't even mention the fact that I had the powers of gandalfar, apparently one of the most powerful familiars alive and familiar of Founder Brimir that these people worship. After all, that's not exactly something I should go around blabbering. It's kind of a sensitive topic.

Not being able to find a flaw in my argument, or she probably just didn't feel like saying everything since everyone's eyes were on either her or me, Montmorency sat down without a single word.

"Um... well yes," Colbert says while trying to get back on topic. "Ms. Vallière, do you wish to try?"

Louise shakes her head and sits back down. I breathe a small sigh of relief. If Louise had gone up there, tried to make the engine work and blew it up instead, my argument would be rendered as unusable and we'd both be the laughing stock of the entire school. Don't worry Louise, sometimes it's better to know when to back off and give up. I just happen to not know when that is. I should work on that.

***Scene Break***

Nighttime. After the "incident," if you can call it that, in the classroom, the day went by pretty normally. Well, except for people seemed to sort of part like the red sea whenever me or Louise walked by and I can't even being to imagine why. All I did was talk down Montmorency and shoot down any chance she had at an argument, what's there to be scared of? My argument was probably full of holes anyway, so why were people scared? Are people worried I'll try to kill them if they keep calling Louise a zero? By this point I'm pretty sure if anyone calls Louise a zero she's the one who'll be taking some lives, not me.

Out of habit I went to get Louise's sleepwear from her closet, but she slapped me and asked what I was doing.

Instead of waiting for an answer she grabbed her night dress and went straight to her bed. She hung her sheets from her bed poles to make a sort of privacy curtain and proceeded to change behind that. All I could even make out was Louise's silhouette, so I imagine it did it's job just as Louise wanted.

_Okay, completely normal behavior, teenage girl doesn't want to be seen while changing clothes. Louise was fine with it in the past, calling me a dog and using that to justify her lack of shame, but now she doesn't want to be seen. What could have possibly happened to make her not want to be seen?_

Ah well, I guess it's not really important, it just means she's starting to act like most teenage girls should. No point in wondering about something you don't need to be worried about.

Eventually Louise finished changing and pulled her sheets down again. She turned over and I guess went to sleep. I crawled in my hay bed and tried to do the same. Then:

"Josh?"

"Yes, Louise?"

"Always sleeping on the floor is a bit extreme," Louise begins. "You can... um... sleep on the bed... if you want."

I freeze in place, which isn't that hard considering I'm lying on the floor. I unfreeze for long enough to sit up and look at Louise.

"I'm sorry, what?"

Despite it being night and really dark I can still make out the blush on Louise's face. "D-don't misunderstand! If you try anything weird I'll kill you," she tells me with a completely straight face.

My hobbies don't go as far as you think they do. Still, I'm thankful for the offer. Without saying anything, considering there really wasn't much else to say, I got in the bed, got under the covers and was immediately a nervous wreck. _I pray to any and all higher powers, that Emily doesn't ask me again if I've slept with Louise. I'd have no choice but to answer yes and she'd probably go blab to the entire kitchen staff before I even have a chance to explain._

Still, calm down, it's only sleeping in the same bed as Louise, nothing's happening and nothing's going to happen. Me and Louise are facing away from each other so I can't even see her expression. She's probably blushing furiously though.

"Um... Josh?"

What now! "Yes Louise?"

"Um... Thanks for defending me like that in class today," Louise says in a small, embarrassed voice.

"It's fine. As a familiar I'm supposed to defend you, right?" I don't think a familiar's duty means that kind of defense, but oh well. The whole thing was worth it to see Montmorency's argument fall apart like that before she even had a chance to form it was awesome.

"R-right," Louise says before sighing. "I'm sorry."

"What do you have to be sorry about? You haven't done anything wrong," I tell her.

"I'm sorry for summoning you," Louise tells me. "If it weren't for me you'd still be in your world."

"It's fine. I guess it's not good, but it's fine," I tell her.

"I'll find a way to get you back to your world," Louise tells me. "I promise."

"Don't worry about it. Your summon spell was probably one of a kind. Until we can find some kind of proof that there is a way to get me back home then I say don't worry about it," I tell her.

"What kind of proof would that be?" Louise asks me.

"Maybe a relic or something recognizable," I say. "The Staff of Destruction is a good start, but I don't quite think it's enough to say 'it is possible to get me home.'"

"There aren't any mages in your world, right?"

"Right."

"And there's only one moon?"

"Yep."

"That's weird," Louise says.

"I've been told that before."

"What did you do in your world?" Louise asks me.

What spawned this conversation? Why is Louise so interested in my world? Oh well, no point in wondering and I should probably answer her question.

"I was a high school student. It's not really that much different from what you're doing here. You go to school and you learn so you can get a nice high paying job," I say almost nostalgically.

"What kind of jobs do people get?" Louise asks me.

What's the most common or generic job I could say that could cover as many bases as possible? "Most people get become an employee at a company, doing whatever job the company tells them to do so they can earn their money."

"I don't understand," _What's there to not understand? _"But is that what you wanted to do?"

I shake my head to the best of my ability. "No, I wanted to be a video game designer at a company I made myself."

I can almost hear a question mark pop itself over Louise's head. "Video game?"

Crap. How do I explain something like this? Let's give it our best shot.

"You've got plays and stage productions, right?" I ask. Let's start off simple and build our way to the top.

"Yes, of course."

"Imagine a play, but prerecorded so you could play it over and over again as many times as you want, whenever you want, and you could rewind to view a scene over again, or fast forward to skip a scene."

"Are you talking about time control?" Louise asks me.

I chuckle a little bit. "I guess in a way, but no. Imagine you could take that prerecorded play, and put it on a disc that you can make as many copies of as you wanted. You would take these discs and put them in a certain machine and you'd be able to view the contents of the disc, in this case the play you've recorded. We call those movies."

Louise is silent for a bit. "I think I get it, but what does that have to do with what you wanted to do?"

"Imagine taking a movie, and being given a controller that allows to control what the main character does. You can make him move in anyway you want, jump at this point, fire a gun at this point, and in some cases even choose what to say. That's a video game."

I hope I explained that well enough. It's hard explaining things like this to someone who's never seen or even heard of one.

"So these video games, they're just interactive movies?" Louise asks me.

"Something like that, yes," I tell her. "People play them for recreational purposes, and I am quite fond of them, so I would like to make them. If you're going to be doing something for the rest of your life, it might as well be something you enjoy, right?"

"I guess so." Louise is silent for a minute, almost like she's thinking of something. I don't blame her, this is a bit to digest, so I wouldn't be surprised if she decided to change the topic and move to something she's more familiar with.

"Wardes said you were a legendary familiar," Louise says. "He said those runes on your hand are the mark of Gandalfar."

When I said "familiar" I didn't mean that kind of familiar. Close enough.

"Yeah, the headmaster said something similar. It's funny, I never thought I'd be an incredibly powerful person in regard to anything," I mention.

"If that's true then why can't I use magic?" Louise asks. "I'm just a zero."

"Hey, didn't I just prove today in class that you're not a zero?" I will not have my own client start pleading guilty to a case in which they are innocent! That's not the defense attorney way!

Louise is silent. I hear her roll over onto her back, and then she takes a deep breath, like she just made up her mind about something.

"You know, ever since I was little I've wanted to be a great mage. Not a powerful mage, I just wand to be able to cast spells like any other noble can. I don't want to keep failing. I don't even know what my element could be. Even when I was little I was told I was helpless. Whenever I ask, people always say that something in your body responds to the incantation and circulates in your body and builds to a climax when the spell is done," _Sounds disturbingly familiar to something a lot of lonely nerds do. _"I've never felt that. I want to be able to at least do things like everyone else or I don't feel I'll be happy with myself," Louise says in a whisper.

Damn everything, how do I respond to that?

"Well," here goes nothing. "Even if you can't use magic, that just means you're normal, and there's nothing really wrong with being normal. Look at me. I'm normal. All I do is swing a sword around. If I can get by by swinging a sword, then I'm sure you can be a great mage. Even if that doesn't turn out, and please don't take this the wrong way, but I know quite a few people back home who wouldn't hesitate to say you're absolutely adorable and would give anything to date you," _flatness notwithstanding, but I also know people who are into that._ "So even if you can't succeed as a mage, there is hope for you in the outside world."

Wow. I had no idea such _stupid_ words could come out of my mouth. What the hell, me? That whole paragraph was stupid! I didn't say anything worth saying that could possibly cheer Louise up! I turn over to see what her reaction is, only to see that she fell asleep. ... How did you do that? Barring the fact that it's kind of rude to fall asleep when someone's talking to you, how did she manage to fall asleep so fast? Did she hear a single word I said? Actually, I kind of hope she didn't.

Looking at Louise like this, completely asleep and completely at peace, she looked really cute. Why does everyone look so much cuter when they're asleep? Is that just an unspoken law of the universe?

Wait, this is a test, isn't it? Louise wants to test to make sure I wouldn't try to make out with her or worse in her sleep, so she's pretending to be asleep and the second I even attempt a move on her she explodes me into bloody giblets that will litter the walls. ... Right. As much as I would love to make out with Louise (Sarcasm. No, really.) It's not worth dying over.

***Scene Break***

Okay, it's been about a week and a half since we've been back and I haven't managed to anger Louise. I think that's a record! Louise had meet with the headmaster yesterday for some reason she wouldn't tell me, and today she was hanging out in the courtyard or something, and I was here in the bedroom doing a little tidying up. I probably didn't have to clean up the room, it looked fine before, but I figure that I might as well considering if I let it stay like that it'll get worse and eventually Louise will yell at me for not cleaning the room.

It was also pretty cold, because I didn't have my jacket. Louise observed that it had somehow gotten pretty scratched up. I'm not entirely sure how, considering I don't think I've taken too much damage over the course of this adventure, but I digress. Like I was saying, Louise observed that my jacket was cut up and demanded that she fix it up. Not that I get it fixed or find someone to fix it, that she fix it. I was unaware she knew how to sew. I just hope she's better at that then she is magic. I'm pretty sure Louise could find a way to sew my jacket the wrong way and make it explode which would suck because I really like that jacket. I know I had been defending Louise and saying she could be a great mage, but I can't deny that she knows how to blow things up really well. Let's hope Michael Bay never gets his hands on her, his movies will be even more explosive then they are now if possible. Anyway, I'm glad I at least have a nice warm T-shirt to wear. I mean, it was only a plain white T-shirt, but it kept heat in pretty well so I didn't have to worry about hypothermia or anything.

*knock knock*

"Door's open, come in," I say.

"Thanks for letting me in because I was going to burst down the door anyway if you said I couldn't come in," says Emily, actually wearing a full maid uniform, as she walks in and closes the door.

_Cosplay! Yippie! _I'm not into cosplay especially, but maid outfits and cat ears are a bit of an exception. They can look soooooo cute! ... I can feel my credibility slipping away.

"What are you doing here?" I ask her.

"You haven't shown up at the kitchen in a while so I figured you were either dead or managed to avoid pissing off Louise, though I was inclined to think the latter," she tells me.

"Yeah, since I haven't given her an excuse to punish me she hasn't been restricting meals or anything like that so there really hasn't been a need to visit the kitchen," I say.

"Is that so? It never occurred to you to drop by and just say hello?" Emily asks, feigning sadness.

"Actually no. After Albion things were slightly chaotic and I just kind of forgot." Wait a minute, I remembered something! "Speaking of which, why did you lie to my face about Louise having a fiancé?"

Emily looks surprised. "Sh-she actually had one? I-I had no idea," she says while looking away.

"You're a terrible liar," I tell her. "I'm not really as mad about you not mentioning it as much as I am confused as to how you know. I highly doubt Louise just told you about it, so how'd you find out?"

"I have my sources," Emily says. "Talk to the right people and you can learn a lot."

"So you're an information broker now?" I ask in a slight state of shock.

Emily laughs. "My knowledge bank isn't quite expansive enough to call it that, though I do know a lot, like that Louise has two sisters, or that Montmorency's family has a contract with the water spirit which supposedly isn't an easy thing to accomplish."

"And you know both of those facts, how?"

Emily winks. "Like I said, I know things and have my sources. Good people."

Okay, this topic is getting a bit too weird for me, switch gears now! "By the way, what's with that outfit? I thought you didn't wear the regular maid outfit?"

"Oh, you like it?" Emily asks as she twirls around. "I don't technically have to wear it, but it's a good change of pace. Besides, the academy gets all pissy when I don't wear it every so often. I'm a maid, so I have to wear the official uniform at some point."

"Well, that certainly is interesting."

"Very much so, though it is a bit long for my tastes," she says as she tugs on the skirt of the dress a bit. "When I walk I feel like I'm going to trip at any minute."

Since we're on the topic of fashiony type things, "I've been meaning to ask, what's with the hairstyle?"

"What do you mean?" Emily asks as she grasps the two tails coming out the top her head. "What's wrong with my hair?"

"Nothing, I was just wondering why you keep it the same. You seem like the kind of girl who would change their hairstyle every other week or something," I tell her.

She sighs in relief. "I like twin tails," she tells me. "It's easy to wear, easy to set up, and I think it looks nice. There really aren't that many other hairstyles I'd like to try, so I stick with what works."

I nod. I resist the urge to tell her to tie her hair in a ponytail. I am not using her to appease my interests, especially since I don't really have a reason too.

"So what are you doing here?" Emily asks me. "And why is Louise in the courtyard with your jacket?"

"She got fed up of me going around with all the cuts and tears in my jacket so she confiscated it from me and demanded she patch it up. I'm here cleaning, I guess," I say to Emily.

"Mind if I help out? I don't really have anything else to do," Emily tells me.

I shrug. "Sure, why not. It always helps to have a helping hand."

Emily took a single step forward, probably to make Louise's bed or something, then her legs got tangled in her maid uniform and she began to fall forward. Thanks to her warning me ahead of time that she feels like she's going to fall whenever she's in that dress I was able to be semi prepared so I tried to catch her to keep her from falling, only for her to knock me down onto Louise bed. Now I was lying on Louise's bed with Emily right above me, and we were about an inch from each other. When did I get trapped in a love comedy anime?

"Um... Now you know why I hate this uniform," Emily says while blushing. "This is kind of awkward, isn't it?"

Then Finagle's Law strikes and things manage to get worse and Louise picks that moment to open the door and walk in. She froze in the doorway when she saw the scene in front of her.

Emily get's off me and says, "No, this is awkward," then she runs off. I sat up and then Louise slapped me so hard that I hit the floor immediately and Louise stomped on my skull. Those were probably the worst 10 seconds of my life.

"Look, I can explain," I say once Louise gets off me and actually gives me a chance to stand up. "Emily came in to help with the cleaning and-"

"Doing something like that on your master's bed," Louise mutters to herself. "I can't forgive you for that."

"If you gave me the chance to explain the misunderstanding-"

"You've been doing that every time I'm not in my room, haven't you?" Louise asks, cutting me off yet again.

_Oh, master Louise is out. Let's grab this girl I view as a friend at the absolute most and **** her brains out on Louise's bed. I'm sure no consequences will result from my actions! _Is apparently what Louise thinks goes through my head on a daily basis. Louise, I gave up fantasizing about things even remotely like that in third grade after... Let's not go into that. Stupid Rin, choosing that moment to open the door.

"Look, would you just listen-"

"Enough." _Apparently not_.

"Enough what?"

"Get out."

Excuse me?

"I said get out! You're fired!" Louise spits out at me. _According to these runes I still have my job, but I don't feel like killing myself and making them go away._

"I'm fired? You're kidding, right?"

"You're fired!" Louise yells at me again. "Get out! Go die in a ditch somewhere!"

_You know what, that's cold. No matter what I did you shouldn't have gone that far. Well, technically, if I had crossed some kind of moral event horizon like trying to kill Louise, I can see why that kind of behavior would erupt, but I didn't. All I did was, allegedly, push down Emily onto Louise's bed._

I should probably protest. I should tell Louise to not be an idiot and explain things, but she's way to far in "tsuntsun" mode, bordering on "yandere" mode. I'm worried if I try anything even remotely against what Louise wants I'll be exploded into a million tiny chunks. I happen to enjoy living, so I'll probably try to explain everything to Louise when she's calmed down a bit. I'll be back in a few days, probably.

"Okay then," I say as I grab Derflinger and walk out.

"I never want to see your face again!" Louise yells at me as she slams the door shut behind me.

I still don't get it though. Why the hell is she so angry? All that happened was that Emily fell on top of me, nothing was happening. Wait. Louise... Damn everything! She still has my jacket! Well, I kind of doubt I'm getting it back now. Damn it, that was my favorite jacket. It was also my only jacket. Damn it.

***Scene Break***

It's been around three days since Louise kicked me out of her room. I refuse to use the term fired because I still have my runes so I technically still have my job. Since then I had set up a little tent in one of the corners of the courtyard of the academy and was living there. Occasionally Emily would drop by and drop some food off. She apologized for getting me in this situation, but I told her to think nothing of it. It wasn't really her fault. Once in a while I'd get lonely and bring in someone's familiar for company, usually Flame or Verdandi, though I did get Slyphid to come visit once. That's really all I could do. I mean, I guess I could drink wine or something to pass the time, but I don't drink, so that's out of the question. I wish I had my laptop or something. I could write To Aru Majutsu no Index fan fiction to pass the time. If I did have my laptop what would I write? Maybe next I'll go for the Accelerator/Index pairing. Or Last Order/Misaka Imouto. Always try something new! The more crack the pairing runs on, the better the fanfic!

Let's ignore my rants for a minute. One day I had unexpected visitors: Kirche and Guiche.

"So you've been here since Louise kicked you out?" Kirche asks me. I nod.

"Can't you do something?" Guiche asks me. "You're ruining the scenery."

"Like what? I don't exactly have a place to stay so all I can do is room here for a bit until things blow over," I tell the two of them.

"What do you mean, until things blow over?" Guiche asks me.

"I was going to go back to Louise's room in a day or two and explain the situation," I say. "I figured she just needed a few days to calm down before she listened to reason."

Kirche smirks and evil smirk. "You could do that, or you could become a noble."

I raise an eyebrow. "Um... I don't have magic powers. My chances of becoming nobility are almost literally in the negatives."

Actually, I don't have magic, but what about Heightened Awareness? And the Gandalfar abilities are rooted in magic. Well, I doubt most people here would accept any arguments I make on that account.

"In Tristain yes," Kirche confirms. "However, all you need to become a noble in Germania is money. If you have enough money then you can buy land and become a noble."

That explains why Louise thinks it's so uncivilized, anyone can buy their way to power. Sounds disturbingly similar to Earth. I like it. Except:

"Great idea, in theory, but I'm kind of broke," I tell Kirche. "I'm completely broke, not a single cent." or whatever they use as currency here.

Kirche pulls out a bundle of paper and taps my face with it. "Then earn some."

I take one of the papers and examine it. "Is this a treasure map?"

Kirche smiles. "Yes it is. With these we can find treasure and sell it, and you can do whatever you want to with the money, Joshua. You can move to Germania, buy a bunch of land, become a noble and then propose to me."

No thank you, I believe I've already mentioned you are not one of the routes I want to go down. Nice try though, trying to get me on the rebound.

"Well, except for pretty much everything you mentioned, it sound like fun," I say. "What the hell, I'm in. I'm always up for a treasure hunt. Anyone else want to join?" I yell out.

Kirche and Guiche look at me. "What was that about?" Guiche asks me.

"Haven't you noticed that people always seem to drop in and surprise us whenever we go on a mission?" I ask the two of them. "When we went to capture Fouquet it was Louise, myself, Kirche and Tabitha who crashed the mission in a manner of speaking. After all, they weren't expecting us to take on the mission. When we went to Albion Tabitha and Kirche dropped by halfway through to help us against the ambushers. People tend to randomly drop in on these missions, so I'm offering them right away so that they don't surprise us when they force themselves along."

"A brilliant observation, and I'm coming too!" Says Emily who just showed up out of nowhere. "After all, you need a chef of some kind in order to get a nice meal every day, right?"

"Case and point. Wait, are you sure you can just leave the school like this Emily?"

Emily slaps me upside the head. "I told you, call me Emi! And yes, it's fine. I was going to go visit my hometown, Tarbes, in about a week, so leaving a few days early is fine. Hell, the academy's been trying to get me out of here because I have yet to take a day off in about three years."

"You haven't had a vacation in three years?" I ask, more than a little surprised.

"A good opportunity never came up, so I've built up quite a few reserve vacation days. I think the academy is fine with it," Emily tells me.

Okay, so that's me, Kirche, Guiche, Emily, and I think it's safe to assume Nagato's coming as well, considering she's always with Kirche. That's a total of five people so we should be set to go. ... Hang on a minute.

"Before we go, I'll be right back," I tell them as I start heading towards the academy.

"Where are you going?" They all ask.

"Bathroom." Blatant lie.

***Scene Break***

"Partner, why are we here?" Derflinger asks me

"In the universal sense, or the literal sense of why are we standing right where we are right now?" I ask right back.

"The second one."

"We're here for this," I say as I knock on the door I'm standing in front of.

"Hey Louise? It's me, Josh."

The door opened almost immediately after I said that. Louise looked like she hadn't slept at all in a week. Her hair was matted and sticking up in certain places, and her clothes were all unkempt, like she'd been sleeping in it for the past three nights or so. Her room was also a mess,like she hadn't been taking care of it, which really frustrated me because the last time I was here was me cleaning it and I hate seeing my work go to waste. But that's not what caught my eye.

"Louise, why are you wearing my jacket?"

Yeah, when Louise opened the door, in addition to what I can only assume is her normal uniform, she was wearing my jacket. It looked really cute on her, although it was probably a size too big so it was almost like some kind of fancy dress for her.

Louise blushes and looks away. "Doesn't matter. I thought I said I never wanted to see you again," There wasn't really any anger in her voice though. If anything it sounded more like she was relieved to see me.

"Well, I figured you were just caught up in the moment and not really thinking straight. Anyway, me, Kirche, Tabitha, Guiche and Emily are going treasure hunting and I didn't feel right going without at least inviting my master."

"I thought I said you were fired," Louise says with slight hints of regret in her voice.

"You can say that all you want, until these runes go away you're stuck with me," I say as I show her my left hand.

Louise pouts but doesn't respond. "Besides, why would I want to go with that maid? You seemed just fine with her a few days ago."

"Like I tried to say, if you just let me explain then the misunderstanding will clear up," I tell her. "Nothing happened, nor was anything going to happen. Since you had been acting nicer and I hadn't been angering you, you hadn't been withholding meals from me. Since you weren't withholding meals from me I haven't been going to the kitchen to get some meals from them. Since I hadn't been getting meals from them, Emily stopped by to make sure I was okay. She then offered to help me clean up the room, but she tripped on her maid uniform. I tried to catch her, but she fell on top of me and accidentally pushed me down on the bed, creating the scene you saw."

"So nothing happened?" Louise asks.

"I'll say again, absolutely nothing happened, nothing ever happened nor will it happen. I don't like Emily in that kind of way, she is at most a friend," I tell her.

Louise looks down, almost like she's ashamed of herself.

"If you don't mind, I'd like to ask a question," I say. "Why were you so pissed at me? Was there any reason that incident could possibly get you so upset?"

Louise blushes and looks away. "I... I might have overreacted." Louise sighs. "I'm... I'm sorry. I said some things back when I kicked you out I probably shouldn't have."

Dialogue option 1: It's fine.

Dialogue option 2: Sucks for you, it's too late for apologies. I just came here to rub everything in your face you terrible example of a mage! See you around, Louise the Zero!

...

It's such a hard choice! I can't decide! I like sarcasm. I find it makes dialogue much more interesting.

"It's fine. Like you said, you overreacted. Everyone thinks something similar to that at least once in their life, you just happened to vocalize it. No reason to hold it against you."

Louise takes off my jacket and hands it to me. I was right, she was wearing her academy uniform underneath it.

"Here, I didn't get a chance to give you your jacket back before you left," Louise tells me.

"Thank you very much," I tell her.

"Josh?"

"Yes, Louise?"

"Were you serious about wanting me to come along with you on that treasure hunt?" Louise asks me.

"Why wouldn't I be?"

"Just give me a minute to get ready," and with that Louise shuts her door, and I can here her scrambling around inside.

While she does that, I examine my jacket. Every single hole it had before I handed it to her was sewn up and fixed. While her skills with a needle and making things from scratch have yet to be tested, Louise's ability to mend holes is clearly very high level. It's almost like she kept practicing just so she'd be able to fix up my jacket or something.

Eventually Louise opens the door, and she looks much better. Her hair's combed, her clothes look brand new and she looks like she's ready to go.

I took Louise back to the courtyard and we met back up with the group that was going treasure hunting. Like I predicted, Nagato was also present alongside Kirche, Guiche and Emily. When I showed up with Louise walking right next to me, the group was definitely surprised.

"Must have been one hell of a trip to the bathroom," I hear Emily mutter to herself.

We have no time for discussing how interesting my bathroom trips are, we have treasure to find!

***Scene Break***

"So what's this thing again?" I ask as I examine the "treasure" that one of Kirche's maps led us too.

"Um... It's apparently called 'Eden's Apple,'" Kirche tells us as she reads from one of the maps. "It apparently gives the wielder the ability to control the minds of others."

"I call dibs!" Emily calls out as she snatches the apple from my hand. She turns to Louise and glares really hard. Unsurprisginlry, nothing happens.

"Dang," Emily says dejectedly as she tosses the apple back to me, which I catch.

"What did you try to do to me?" Louise asks.

"I was just trying to help out and get you to confess your love to Josh already," Emily says with a pout. "It's taking far too long to get to that point."

I think I hear Emily mutter something about a volume 13, but me and Louise are too busy yelling at her about how mistaken she currently is. Once me and Louise get the necessary yelling out of the way, I do actually take a minute to examine the apple. It was round, predictably, which is why it probably got it's name as an apple even though most apples I'm seen aren't really that round. It kind of looked like some kind of highly advanced piece of tech, even by Earth standards. It had this kind of glow to it.

...

_Well, it's useless anyway,_ I think to myself as I toss the apple behind me to who knows where. No use in keeping useless junk when you're looking for treasure, right?

"Kirche, the next time you get something from a shady market person, remind me to stay out of it," I tell her.

"So what if all the maps have been frauds!" Kirche explains. "We still have one more left."

"At least the trip's been interesting," Louise says to herself.

Every single one of the roughly 20 maps Kirche had boughten was completely fake. Not a single one led to an actual treasure. Not one. I pray for my sanity that this one holds at least a grain of truth. I do not want to have fought, and killed(!), several bloodthirsty, baby-eating orcs and not get anything in return. Despite the many similarities, I am not a video game protagonist! I do not enjoy doing life threatening things for no reward!

"Fine Kirche, what is it?" I ask.

"It's some item called the Dragon's Raiment," Kirche says while looking at the map.

At that Emily perks up. "Well why didn't you say that in the first place? We've got that back home in Tarbes!"

"What?" Is everyone in the group's reply.

"What do you mean you have the Dragon's Raiment?" Kirche asks.

"It's a family heirloom. It belonged to Great Grandpa. We keep it in a storage house back home in Tarbes. No! Don't ask more!" Emily says when she sees us open our mouthes. "I'll tell you more when we reach Tarbes. I'd hate to ruin the surprise," She adds with a wink.

"Why do I get the feeling this is going to go very badly?" I hear Louise ask.

***Scene Break***

"So what is the Dragon's Raiment?" I ask Emily as we all rode on Slyphid to Tarbes.

"It's a ze- I mean, it's this one thing that apparently allows you to fly when you put it on," she says. I'm curious about the word switch, but I know I'm not getting an answer.

"So it's a wind type item?" Louise asks.

"Well, kind of," Emily says. "It's... well it's not really a hoax if Great Granddad's to be believed, but whenever people asked him to make it fly he would make up excuses. Eventually he just gave up and said he couldn't get it to fly at the moment so people would stop bugging him."

"Sounds like he was a bit insane," Kirche says.

Emily laughs. "He was definitely a bit of a nut. He claimed he flew here from the East with it. Apparently it really meant a lot to him, because he worked hard got a lot of money and paid for the nobles to cast a spell of preservation on it."

"I just thought of something," I say. "If it's something famous in the village, assuming it actually is real, we can't exactly take it with us."

"Oh, it's no big deal," Emily says. "It's family property. I'm pretty much free to do whatever I want to do with it. We're only about a few minutes away and then you can all see it."

A few minutes later, as predicted, we had arrived in Tarbes. Emily took us right to the "temple" where they were holding the Dragon's Raiment. Apparently the temple had been built specifically to house the Raiment by Emily's Great Grandfather or something like that. It was a kind of weird design though, it looked almost like a storage warehouse from back home.

"And here we are!" Emily announces proudly as she shows us the warehouse temple.

"So what are you waiting for?" Kirche asks. "Open the door and show us the thing!"

"All right, all right," Emily says. "But remember not to be too disappointed. Without further ado, I present to you all, the Dragon's Raiment!" Emily says as she opens up the doors and motions us inside.

I only make it about three steps inside the building before seeing the Raiment.

"No freaking way," I say to myself as I give the thing a once over. Louise and Derflinger are the only ones that notice.

"What's the matter partner?" Derflinger asks.

"What's wrong Josh? Are you feeling alright?" Louise asks.

"Why I do believe we've found our proof," I tell them. "Louise, Derflinger, say hello to the airplane. It's a vehicle from my world."

"What?" Is both of their replies.

I think Guiche and Kirche were debating over how much of a hoax the plane was, not if it was a hoax but how big of a hoax, but I ignored them. I walked up to the plane and placed a hand on it to make sure it was real. I soon as I touched it my Gandlafar runes lit up. _Well, this plane was used way back when as a weapon of war. Not really surprising. _What also wasn't surprising was what type of plane it was. It was a zero fighter. Dear god, the irony was almost too much to take.

"Emily," *SLAP* "I mean, Emi, you're sure that you're great grandfather arrived in this?" I ask.

She nods. "Yeah, why do you ask?"

"Did he leave behind any belongings or anything similar?"

"Well," Emily begins. "Really the only noteworthy thing is his grave. In his will great Granddad said whoever could read the writing on his grave could have the Dragon's Raiment. What, did you want to see that?"

"Yes, please."

Emily hands me a piece of paper.

"So many people claim to be able to read his grave that I've grown tired of walking to it, so I just keep this paper on it. It's an exact copy of what's written on his grave so there's no real difference."

I look at the writing on the paper. _Ah damn it, it's in Japanese. Wait, I've been taking Japanese classes!_

"Thank god for Japanese classes," I say.

"What's Japanese?" Louise asks.

"Not really important," Emily says while waving her hand. "So are you telling me you can read this?"

I nod. "I think. You have a pen or something I can right with?"

Emily gets me what appears to be a fountain pen of some kind, and I start writing on the back of the paper she gave me. Okay, that's a "sa" that's a "ta..." Okay, it took about 5 minutes, but I think I've got it.

"Okay, I think it says something along the lines of 'Sasaki Takeo, navy ensign, rests in another world.' Take that at face value though, my Japanese is pretty rusty and I was never that good at it anyway."

Emily shakes her head. "Actually, you've got some words mixed up, Navy Ensign comes before his name, but you got it pretty much down. Thank God great granddad left the answer key as well."

"Wait, I got it right?" I ask. "Then that means-"

"Correct! Congrats, you've got a plane all your own now," Emily tells me. "Since you seem to know quite a bit, the will also mentioned something about taking it back to the king, but we don't know what country he's from. Any idea?"

"Well considering the fact that the Zero Fighter itself-"

"The what?" Louise asks.

"The plane," I tell her. "This specific model is called the zero fighter. Anyway, considering it's a Japanese plane and he wrote in Japanese, I'd say he's from Japan, which is a country from my world."

Gasps go around, except for Guiche and Kirche who left a while ago and Emily who doesn't seem all that surprised.

"So you're trying to tell me that Great Granddad is from your world," Emily tells me.

I nod. "Yep. Apparently your family here has some genes from my world in it. This is definitely interesting."

"So Emily's a descendant from someone from your world?" Louise asks. It's probably my imagination, but I think I hear a hint of nervousness from her voice.

"No point worrying about it now," I say. "I'm hungry. Is dinner almost ready?"

***Scene Break***

I was currently standing at the edge of this really nice field in Tarbes. Dinner wasn't ready yet, disappointingly, so I figured I should probably take in the sights. This town was freaking gorgeous. It was so serene and peaceful. I was so taken in by how awesome this place looked that I didn't hear the footsteps coming up behind me.

"Yeah, this is the best view this place has to offer," I hear Emily says as she walks up right next to me.

"Well, it's a very nice view."

"I'm sure your world has some nice views too, doesn't it? By the way, thanks for confirming that for me," Emily says with a wink.

Oh yeah, I don't think I ever told Emily I was from another world. Oops. "Um... You knew?"

"Stop doubting my information network!" She yells at me. "Like I've said, I know a lot of stuff from knowing a lot of people. Like that you're partially wrong."

"About what?"

"While I can't see you being wrong about Great Granddad being Japanese or whatever, you're wrong in applying that fact to me."

"What do you mean?" I ask.

"I'm not related to him or anyone here by blood," Emily tells me.

"What?"

"Yeah, I'm kind of adopted," Emily tells me. "I think it was around three years ago. There was... an accident, I guess would be the proper term. Some things happened, and I can't see my biological parents anymore."

"Are they gone or..." I ask.

Emily shakes her head. "No, nothing like that, as far as I'm aware. They're just in a place I can't get to very easily, so there's almost a zero percent chance I'll see them again. After that accident, I wound up here. I didn't know where I was, or how I got here, but my current parents were nice enough to take me in as their daughter. Eventually I heard about the academy of magic and how they've got a whole maid service. I figured if I was going to get a job, it might as well be at somewhere that's at least considered prestigious, even if the job isn't as much."

I kind of want to know more about that accident, but that's probably info exclusive to the Emily route. It's one of the two routes I'd consider going down but... Meh, I'll flip a coin later.

"Do you ever wonder what happened to your parents?" I ask.

Emily sighs. "Almost every day. I'm sure they're fine, but I'm sure they're probably still freaking out. I wish I knew where they are now, or had a way to contact them."

"Well, where'd you live before the accident?"

Emily's silent for a minute. "West, I think."

"You think?"

"Hell if I know the geography of this planet!" She yells at me. "I guess if you just head west far enough you'd reach it eventually, though the same effect can probably be achieved just by going east for just as long a time. I wish I had a point of reference or something."

Then we're silent for a minute. I would have said something, but I didn't know what.

"Ah well," Emily says, breaking the silence. "It's fine, I guess. Anyway, dinner's ready if you want it."

"And that is the sound I wanted to hear," I say as I follow Emily back to her house.

I was kind of starting to feel sorry for her though. Maybe it's just because I can relate to being separated from my family with no way of contacting them or anything similar, but I can really sympathize with Emily. At least her parents are on this world somewhere so she has a chance of meeting them again, I don't get that kind of luxury.

No use whining about it now! Whining doesn't get anything done. I need to focus on more important matters, like what they made for dinner! Oh yeah, and how am I going to get a fuel-less airplane back to the academy?

***Scene Break***

Good old Colbert, does his scientific curiosity know no bounds? We were able to hire a bunch of dragons knights to carry the Zero Fighter back to the academy, and Colbert volunteered to pay them as soon as we got back. He was really excited to see the Zero Fighter, and spent roughly 14 minutes and 3.141 seconds geeking out about how amazing it was. I did my best to answer any questions he had about how it worked, but I'm no pilot (yet) so I think I might have answered things with slight misinformation. Luckily a quick touch to the place, and the Gandalfar runes fill my head with knowledge about the plane and it's inner workings.

I think I was wrong in thinking I became a video game protagonist, I think it's that all video protagonists are actually me, or similar. After all, if they didn't have the gandalfar runes, then how could they instantly know how to use every single weapon and vehicle they come across perfectly? I'm willing to give the benefit of the doubt to Call of Duty and Battlefield because you play as military soldiers, so they're trained to be able to be those kind of awesome things. Games like Uncharted and Turning Point don't get that excuse. How the hell does an everyday man manage to take down 100s of men by themselves with weaponry they've never had experience with before and use those weapons like they've held one since they were born? At least I have that excuse with my Gandalfar runes. If I ever get back to Earth, I'm pitching my life to someone who could do it right, like Bioware, or Bethesda. Bioware's had experience in medieval type settings, and Bethesda's great at large open world type games, I think everyone would want to play this in video game form. Hell, you don't even have to put me in the game, it could be their own creation. The game could be a sort of cross between Devil May Cry and World of Warcraft, taking the main combat engine from the former and the large, interesting open world from the latter, with maybe a sort of Mass Effect style dialogue wheel to offer a bit of choice and immersion. I know I'd sure as hell play it, though I am kind of biased.

Moving on from that incredibly weird tangent, It had been about a week since we got back, and me and Colbert were working on the Zero Fighter in order to get it functioning. I was working on the actual plane while Colbert was busy trying to create some gasoline to actually make the thing function, otherwise it'd be kind of pointless to even think of keeping this. I also told Colbert how I'm from another world. It didn't seem right working with him on something like this and keeping the truth from him. He took it well, like a scientist should.

Eventually Colbert was able to make enough gasoline to start the plane, not get it to work, just get the engine started. That was more then enough for us, and we kicked it into overdrive. Colbert got to work on making even more of it, and I started making sure everything about the Zero Fighter was perfect. Wings rigid? Check. Propellor functional? Check. Cockpit comfortable? Check. Guns loaded and ready to fire? HELL YES!

Unfortunately, I think my constant working on the Zero Fighter was starting to annoy Louise, because she started coming with me when I began working on it. She was mostly a silent observer, but she'd occasionally as a question, like how exactly it works or why it exists, but that was about it.

"How long are you going to work on that thing?" Louise asks me as I continue working on the plane. Unfortunately I was a little to much into fixing the thing so I didn't hear her.

"Hey, stop ignoring me!" She yells as me as I continue to unintentionally ignore her and work on the Zero Fighter.

Then she walks up and kicks me in my shin.

"Ow! Sorry, Louise, did you say something?" I rather stupidly ask.

"Yeah, how long are you going to work on that thing?" She asks me again, rather angrily.

"Until it works which could be a long time or about a day, it really depends on when Colbert finishes the gasoline."

"Well I need help with something so finish up!"

Did you buy a new whip and need to break it in? I don't see what else you could need my help with.

"Okay, I guess I'm pretty much done for the night," I tell her. "Let's head back to your room."

Louise nods in satisfaction. "Good. A good familiar is like a dog, it should listen to it's master."

Can I add that to the tally? She didn't really call me a dog, but she did sort of liken me to a dog. Hmmmm. I give it a half point.

With that said we head back to Louise's room and she changes in to her night clothes (Behind her bed's makeshift privacy sheets) and she pulls out this book.

"This is the founder's prayer book. The princess has given this to me to mark me as the reader of the royal edict at her wedding," Louise tells me.

"So you want my opinion on what you've written so far?" I ask for confirmation while I sit in my hay bed that we still keep around for nostalgia's sake.

Louise nods. "It needs to be sweeping and poetic and give thanks to all the elements, but I'm just not that good at that kind of writing."

"Well let's hear what you've got so far," I say.

"Okay, but please don't laugh," Louise says in a small, embarrassed voice.

It can't be any worse then my writing. Let's just hear what you've written and I'll offer my opinion.

...

Dear god, that was awful. Even the Vogons would be appalled at your edict. I mean... Just... Gah... I can't... My brain isn't functioning any more.

Louise was looking at me and waiting for my opinion.

"Um... Well it shows you've got a lot of potential," I say as I try to grasp for something that won't make her kill me.

Louise pouts. "You thought it was terrible, didn't you?"

I never vocalized my thoughts on your writing, even if your assessment is completely accurate.

I open my mouth to try and defend myself, but Louise throws her prayer book at me, and nails me square in the face.

"I'm going to sleep," she says as she crawls under her covers.

Okay then, I guess I'll just lie down and- then a pillow hit my face. Is my face a magnet for projectiles?

"Bring that back. Didn't I say you can sleep in my bed?" I hear Louise say from her side of the bed.

Um... Thanks, but you seem kind of angry. Well, she'll probably be more angry if I don't listen to her, so I'll take my chances with the bed.

"So what are you going to do once you've fixed the Dragon's Raiment?" Louise asks me as we both lie in the bed on our backs, gazing at the ceiling.

"Zero Fighter," I correct. " And I think I'll fly East or something. I mean, the owner flew here from the East, so I might be able to find a clue to get back home. Now that I have a bit more proof it's possible, I definitely want to try and find a way back home."

"It'll be dangerous," Louise tells me. "I hear the people there are extremely violent."

"Well, they're still humans, right? I'm sure they can't be that bad. Besides, wouldn't it be worth it in the end if I make it back home?" I say.

There's silence for a minute, like Louise is choosing her next words carefully.

"Um... If I were to asked you not to go, would you still go?" She asks in a quiet voice.

"What?"

"No-nothing," Louise says as she turns over and faces away from me. "Good night."

Um, good night to you too, but what was that about? If Louise asked me not to go... Well, she hasn't given that order yet, so I'll burn that bridge when I come to it. I'd rather not think about those kinds of things right now.

***Scene Break***

Okay, Princess' wedding is soon, so the carriage should be here to pick up me and Louise today. Speaking of Louise, I hadn't bothered pressing her on that question she asked me a few nights ago. There really wasn't a need. She probably wouldn't tell me anyway, so it's better to not waste my breath.

So where's that carriage? The princess (hopefully) isn't going to get married twice, you know. Instead of a carriage, we got some guy out of breath riding a horse.

"You two," he asked while pointing at the me and Louise, "Where is Headmaster Osmand's office?"

Louise gave him directions, and he dismounted his horse and ran off. Me and Louise exchanged glances, then gave pursuit. I guess we both had a premonition of bad things happening or something.

We followed the messenger to Osmand's quarters, and pressed our ears to the door to listen in on the conversation. I mean, what's the worst that could come about? I mean it's not like Albion's invad-

"Albion has declared war on Tristain!" The messenger shouts. "They're invasion force is head for Tarbes right now!"

Damn everything, can't you wait until I finish my sentence before proving me wrong? Please? Wait, Albion's invading Tarbes? As in Emily's home town? Crap. Saying this is bad is a bit of an understatement.

Without a word I turn and run for the courtyard.

"Josh, what do you think you're doing!" Louise yells at me once I reach the courtyard and approach the zero fighter.

You know, I thought it was kind of obvious that I'd want to help, but apparently not. "I'm going to take this Zero Fighter, fly to Tarbes and go help stop an invasion."

Louise's jaw drops open. "You can't be serious. You'll die. You can't expect to take a toy like this, fly it into a war zone and expect to come out alive."

I sigh, partially in frustration. "First, this isn't a toy," I say as I put my hand on the Zero Fighter causing my runes to light up. "It's a weapon from my world. It exists to end things, usually lives. Second, why are you worried if I die? I die and you can summon another familiar, probably one more suited to your tastes, so what's the problem?"

Louise blushes and looks away. "A m-mage never throws away their familiar like a used toy just because they want another one." As she says this Louise has this expression on her face that just screams "Yeah! That's it! Great reason!" I'd question it, but I don't have time and, taking standard Tsundere behavior into account, I already have a feeling what it is and am purposely choosing to ignore it. Yay selective obliviousness!

I sigh again. "Well then do you want to come with me?"

"What?" Louise asks.

"Let's be honest here, the second I turn my back to go get the gasoline from Mr. Colbert, you were going to climb right into the Zero Fighter like a little stowaway, weren't you?"

Louise looks semi-offended. "I w-would never-" I glare at her slightly. "Ye-yes."

There, was that so hard? "There, now I'm going to go get the gasoline from Colbert so we can actually fly this thing. Feel free to climb in while I'm gone," I say as I pop open the cockpit. There wasn't a second seat or anything, but there was quite a bit of space behind the seat. For someone Louise's size, it shouldn't be that difficult for her to squeeze in there. Now for me to got get the gasoline and fly this damn thing into battle. I have a town to save! I hope people here haven't invented bullet repelling spells or we're screwed beyond belief. This should be fun.

***Scene Break***

"Partner," Derflinger begins. "You seem kind of tense."

"You try piloting a plane into battle when you've never so much as driven a car before," I tell him.

"What?" Cries Louise from behind my seat. "You've never driven one of these things and you still think you can do any good against a trained army? Are you stupid?"

Probably. "Hey, if this works then we can almost single handedly save Tarbes."

"And if it doesn't?" Louise asks in a worried tone.

"Then we die in addition to Tarbes being destroyed. Best start praying to whatever gods you worship that this works," I say.

It turns out flying really wasn't that hard, though that was probably because the Gandalfar runes gave me knowledge of how to actually make this thing function. We had gotten the gas, filled up the plane and then had a spectacular take off with only a few trees getting knocked over. Bah, they were blocking the view of the mountains anyway. Judging by the plane's speed I'd say we'd be in Tarbes any minute now.

Actually make that now. I can see a lot of fire, at least 20 people flying around on dragons, and one very large ship. Well, the ship is the size of the village, but does a single ship really qualify as an invasion force? Still, they were clearly attacking the village, so let's get ready to rock.

"We're here," I announce cheerfully to Louise. "Brace yourself, this might be a bit chaotic."

"We're entering a war zone, that's to be expected," Louise tells me.

We finally get into a range where I can start messing some things up with my airplane guns, but I don't have a good lock on anything yet. Also, all the dragons and their riders seem to be ignoring me. I manage to get one in my sights and get ready to start the battle. _This is for ignoring me as a viable threat!_ I pull the trigger, the guns go flashing, and the dragon's wings are filled with holes and it goes plummeting to the ground.

A few riders seem to be looking around in a daze, wondering what the hell just happened, but becomes the fatal mistake of not paying attention to the fully loaded war plane ready to protect a village. This should be fun.

I line up another in my sights and pull the trigger, his wings go out and he falls to the ground. Geez, these people really need to work on a back up plan. They're dead as soon as someone pokes a hole in their dragon's wings. That's kind of a big Achilles' heel, isn't it?

Hmmm. Maybe I should put on some appropriate mental music for when the battle starts. Something suitably epic for a plane to dragon battle in the air. Dream on? No, not epic enough. And Justice for All? Nah, too epic. I need something epic, but not too rock. What would make perfect battle music? ... Aha! Perfect! I've picked the perfect song for the occasion, so let's get ready to fight some dragons.

With the appropriate music playing mentally, I can almost feel my performance increase. I manage to get another 5 dragons in a matter of seconds- strike that, 6. This is good.

"Partner, what are you humming?" Derflinger asks me.

"Sorry, I didn't realize," I tell him. "Just a song from back home called Dragon Rider. Fitting, isn't it?"

"Definitely," Derflinger says. "I like it."

"We're in a life or death battle and you're humming?" Louise asks. "You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Killing people? Not so much, that's why I'm aiming for their wings. Their's a small chance they'll survive, but they won't be able to do anything," I tell her. "As for the flying around? Yes, I am quite enjoying it. You would too if you could fly one of these things."

"I think I'll pass," Louise says.

Ah well, maybe next time. Okay, another 5 dragons down. Only about five left, then we need a to find a way to take out the ship.

"Partner, on your left," Derflinger tells me.

I look out the cockpit and see a new dragon moving way faster then the other. Wait, is that pilot...

"Guess what?" I ask Louise.

"What? Are we dead yet?" She asks.

Not as far as I'm aware. "No, but Wardes is back riding a dragon."

"What?" Louise asks.

"Don't worry, I think we got this."

Okay, I just need to- what the hell? Where'd Wardes go?

"Behind you, Partner!"

"Ah, thank you Derflinger, that makes things easier."

"Thank me later! That's a wind dragon, he can probably out fly us," Derflinger tells me.

Please, I've got a freaking war plane. Can a wind dragon do this? Ignoring my instincts to say a certain phrase that has no relation to the maneuver, I do a loop in what I judge to be record time, and suddenly I'm behind Wardes.

He turns around and looks at the plane. I give him a cheerful wave, then pull on the trigger and let the machine guns rain hell upon all those who fall under the misfortune of being in it's line of fire. Namely, the poor sap who used to be my master's fiancé. It was also rather cathartic, considering he tried to kill me and Louise. I didn't do it on purpose, but my aim was slightly all over the place. Yeah, I managed to hit the dragon's wings, but I also might have peppered Wardes with bullets. Around 20 of them. In his back. I think one hit his hat.

"There, we'll never have to deal with Wardes again," I say.

Then I feel my danger sense going off, and I look right behind me to see Louise staring at the founder's prayer book with great intensity. Then it starts glowing.

"Why is the book glowing? Books aren't supposed to glow," I say.

Louise doesn't answer and keeps looking at the book. Ah well, it can't be that important, so let's focus on- Then Louise climbed over the seat and sat in my lap. Wha-

"Joshua, pilot the Zero Fighter over the main ship," Louise tells me in a very scary monotone.

Why does everyone see fit to interrupt me when I'm narra-

"Parter, watch out! Cannonballs!" Derflinger yells.

See? That's what I-

"Will you pay attention to what you're doing?" Derflinger asks. "Those cannons are going to tear us to shreds at this rate!"

You know Derflinger you can go s-

*Whoosh*

"That cannonball nearly hit the cockpit!" Derflinger yells out.

Thanks for the update, I didn't notice. ... Nothing? Much better.

Okay, get the zero fighter over the main ship and try to not question why Louise is suddenly possessed and sitting in my lap. Those are questions for when we're not about to die.

Eventually I manage to get us in a position over the ship where we are safely out of range of cannons.

"Bring us closer," Louise says, again in a monotone.

Sigh. Why am I not surprised she wants to put me in such a life threatening situation? Whatever you say master.

Okay, now we're closer to the plane and in range of the cannons. Now what Louise?

"Open the cockpit," She tells me.

You know, she could tell me to go block out the sun and I wouldn't be surprised. That's how used to ridiculous things I am by this point. Okay, cockpit's open, now what?

Louise stood up and pointed her wand at the ship and started chanting something. I don't know what her plan was or what spell she was chanting, but I suddenly felt ready to take on an entire army. I didn't feel like laughing in the face of death, I felt like punching him in the face, stealing his wallet then pointing and laughing as he remained crumpled on the floor in a fetal position. It was a very good feeling. However, that doesn't solve our immediate problem of cannons and more dragons.

I kept piloting the Fighter doing my best to avoid whatever was thrown at us, be it cannons or dragons.

"Okay Louise, whatever you're going to do-"

I'm cut off when she finishes her spell and points her want at the ship below us. At first nothing happens. Then all of a sudden, it was really hard to notice, a small ball of light appeared on the ship. Then it kept growing, and growing, and growing, until it exploded into a giant ball that completely sucked the ship in. Hell, even the remaining dragon riders were caught in it. The only reason we were safe was that I've got pretty good reflexes and a sixth sense for detecting when I'm about to be caught in an explosion. Being near Louise for any amount of time kind of does that to you after a while. Once the explosion cleared, there was nothing. No wreckage, no trace at all that there had been an invasion. The explosion was so powerful it seemed to have destroyed everything on a molecular level. I'm more worried about being blown up now then ever.

Having finished her spell, Louise slumped down and leaned against me. I shut the cockpit and set a course for home.

"Louise, what the hell was that?" I ask her.

"A legend," She says sleepily.

"Legend, eh?" I say in response. "Well, I guess it's not important at this moment. Get some rest before we head back to the academy."

Louise nods and shuts her eyes. A few minutes later, her calm, even breathing shows she's asleep.

_I feel like playing detective for a moment so let's deduce this legend in my British accent again. Louise said she just used a legend. What are some of the legends of this planet? I don't think explosions are one of them, so let's turn our attentions towards another well known legend, heart. Er... Void, my apologies. To date, The only spell Louise has succeeded in is the summoning spell which summoned me, an ordinary human, and branded him with the marks of this civilization's founder. This founder, I think his name was Brimir, was said to be able to use the element of void. A void isn't an element at all, but neither is heart, so I'm willing to let it slide. If we can assume that me being a familiar of void is connected to Louise's magic, then her dominant element becomes clear. She never succeeded in any magic because she was using the wrong elements, she was never using void. If that book belonged to the founder or whatever, it's not to farfetched to assume that it gave Louise her first actual spell of her element, thus making her a mage of void element, thus making Master Louise the most powerful mage currently in existence. And they were calling her a zero._

Even if that's so, I think I should just be grateful we're alive at the moment. I don't know what gods Louise prayed to, but it sure seemed to have worked. I would have prayed, but I was busy making sure we didn't die. I'm sure someone will forgive me in the long run though. Saving a whole town singlehandedly probably earned me a few positive karma points.

**Author Notes:**

Uncreative: Well, you were right about the apple of eden part, though I must admit it's something I added literally five minutes ago purely for my own personal amusement.

Ariana: Josh should have tried to use it on someone. Then they would have discovered it's the real thing, the story would have veered in who knows what direction-

Uncreative: I would know.

*SMACK*

Uncreative: Ow!

Ariana: and it would have been awesome. Oh well. Anything to add?

Uncreative: Void is really freaking powerful, isn't it?

Ariana: I wonder who would win in a fight between an exceptional, like a square class, void mage and pretty much any other mage.

Uncreative: I smell a Negima/Tsukaima crossover! Think about it, mages in both universes need time to cast powerful spells and both have a "partner" or "familiar" to buy time while the mages cast!

*SMACK*

Ariana: You said you weren't going to come up with more story ideas before getting the rest of these out!

Uncreative: I get it! Stop hitting me! Okay, author notes. Um...

Ariana: Emily.

Uncreative: Right! We learned a bit about Emily this chapter, didn't we?

Ariana: How do you forget what happened in your own story? Never mind. Anyway. Why did you not make Emily the biological replacement for Siesta? If her parents didn't have Emily instead due to her being adopted, then what happened to Siesta?

Uncreative: From a non-canon point of view, the reason Siesta doesn't exist is because Emily took her place, and the reason why her backstory, if you can call it that, is different is because what's the point of an original character if they're exactly the same as a character from the original canon? Now watch me accidentally write an OC who's exactly like one of the canon characters.

Ariana: I'm pretty sure you've probably done that already.

Uncreative: Thanks for the encouragement. We're done here.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six: Love sucks**

After saving Tarbes like the badasses me and Louise are, we were currently in a meeting with Princess Henrietta, who was now apparently a queen. I think I'll stick with Henrietta on it's own, if you don't mind.

Once Henrietta and Louise saw each other they grabbed each other in a big hug and started talking about how good it was to see each other again. Look, I know your friends, but can you keep it down a bit? If the fan fic writers ever catch wind of it they'll be no end to the Louise/Henrietta Rule 34 action that comes about as a result. Please, for my sanity, keep it to a minimum.

"I must congratulate you on your victory," Louise says to Henrietta once they finish hugging.

Henrietta shakes her head. "No Louise, I must thank you."

_And I must also not thank Josh, the person who actually flew the Zero Fighter in and made the victory possible in the first place, even if Louise dealt the final blow._

"I-I did nothing, Princess!" Louise says unconvincingly.

"Louise, did you think you could keep such a great secret from me?" Henrietta asks while smiling at the still flustered pinkette. Pinkette, now that's a word I never though I'd use.

"I still didn't do anything," Louise says in a horrible attempt at playing dumb. Louise, when you don't want anyone to know something, use sarcasm. It works much better then pretending to not know anything about it.

In response, Henrietta hands Louise a piece of parchment that she then proceeds to read through. I manage to catch a glimpse of the paper, but I can't read a single damn thing on the paper. Damn everything, why did this place have to have it's own written language? Why couldn't they have a writing system similar to Earth's? I'd take any language, even French. It'd at least be a language I can kind of recognize based on the letters and stuff.

After reading the paper Louise sighs. "So you scouted even that?"

Scouted what? Don't leave me in the dark please.

"We're in a war, it's best not to overlook anything," Henrietta says as she turns to me. "Like how this young man controlled the foreign country flight machine that destroyed the enemy's dragon troops. You have my sincerest gratitude."

I wasn't expecting to be thanked at all. I figured it was MvC3 rules, only the person who lands the final blow gets any of the credit while everyone else who might have done all of the work just gets a passing "Oh, these guys helped too." I sure as hell wasn't expecting the princess to single me out for a declaration of gratitude. That's really the only reason I was complaining, I thought I was going to be left out, like with the Fouquet thing.

"Really, I didn't do much."

"You are a hero of this country," Henrietta tells me. _For what? All I've done here is catch a thief, deliver a letter, and stop a single invasion force in a war that's probably going to have many more. I don't quite see how I'm a hero. _"By all means I should be giving you a noble's title for your efforts."

"That's wrong!" Louise yells out. "Turning a dog into a noble!"

Henrietta gives he a confused look. "Dog?"

Louise blushes and looks away. "N-no... It doesn't matter," She mumbles mostly to herself. Ha! You can't get away with that in front of the princess!

"Then I shall grant him a peer's title," Henrietta says. Wait, what's with that tone? I suddenly feel like we're going to be walking out of here with the status quo intact.

"This outcome of this battle was all thanks to you, Louise Francoise," Henrietta says. "By all means you should be given a territory the size of a country and be called a duchess for your efforts."

"I d-don't need anything," Louise muttered hesitantly. "The deed was my familiar's."

While that statement is half true, like I said, you're the one who dealt the final crippling blow with that giant explosion, and didn't you once say that a familiar's deed is it's master's deed or did I just make that up? I'm inclined to think the former, but oh well.

"You were the cause of that light, weren't you Louise?" Henrietta asks in as calming a voice she can. "People are calling that light a miracle, but I don't believe in miracles," _It'll be a miracle if we ever get out of this conversation. _"That light came from your flying machine, and you were the source of it, weren't you Louise?"

I feel like this conversation is going in circles, with nothing being solved. Can we cut to the point or reasonably close to it?

Louise pulled out her founder's prayer book and the water ruby she got so long ago and shoed them to Henrietta. She mentioned something how the book started glowing and she could read the blank pages. I remember seeing the book glow, but I didn't have time to see if there were any words.

"Is it true that this book was written using the element of void?" Louise asks.

Aaaand, boom! I was completely correct! Louise and Henrietta just said everything I predicted back in the zero fighter. Louise is, in fact, a void mage. Throw confetti! And due to it's nature as a legend, we're unable to tell anyone about Louise's void and can't possibly be rewarded for saving a town and stopping an invasion force. More confetti! Well, I was wrong in assuming _we_ wouldn't get anything. Louise got a letter that says she's a member of the princess's court, therefore all she has to do is show that letter to someone and she can do whatever the hell she wants. Why does everyone here apparently hate me?

Henrietta gasped, like she got an idea, and started fumbling around in her fancy queen dress. She pulled out a bag that jingled like it was full of coins, then turned and offered it to me.

"I ask you to look after my dear friend Louise, dear familiar."

"My names Joshua, and I can't accept that, can I? Is that okay? I mean, I happy I'm getting rewarded, but really all I did was shoot down a few dragons, nothing important."

Besides, I wasn't serious with the complaining. It was all in good jest! I don't need anything!

"It's perfectly fine Joshua, there is no problem with a queen rewarding her subjects for their loyalty," Henrietta tells me.

"Well... If you insist," I say as I take the coin bag and drop it in my pocket. "Thank you very much."

Now what was I going to do with all this money? It's not like back home when there was about 50 different things I had my eye on at any single one time. Still, it can't possibly hurt to have spare change, but what worried me was Louise becoming a member of the princess' court. Isn't she going to be busy way more often now? Didn't she say she'd help me find a way home? *Sigh* I completely realize my chance of going home is close to the negatives, so I really shouldn't even be complain. Damn everything.

***Scene Break***

After the meeting me and Louise were walking around town.

"You know Louise, you're a little too eager to promise things," I mean, even Valvatorez would be impressed with how committed you are to the princess.

"What do you mean?"

"It's just that, with you joining Henrietta's court, isn't it going to be quite a bit harder to find a way for me to get home?"

"Don't leave without my permission. Everyone stays here so stop asking," Louise says as she averts her face so I can't see her reaction to what she just said.

"What, do you not want me to leave or something?" I ask.

Louise gasps. "Wh-what are you talking about now you stupid familiar?"

"Judging by what you said, it doesn't sound like you want me to go back to my world. What, are you worried you wouldn't be able to help out Henrietta without me there?" After all, what other possible reason could there be for Louise to not want me to leave? Besides the obvious which she's started showing hints of, but I still deny.

Louise still isn't looking at me so I can't even begin to suspect what may be going through her head. "R-right! That's it," she says eventually. "We need you here to help. No one would ever care about someone like you otherwise."

"Beautiful. That's a very pleasant thought," I say as I keep walking. It's only a few minutes later that I realize Louise isn't near me.

"Louise?" I call out, as if that would work.

"Ah, damn it," I say as I start backtracking to try and find her. Crap, where did she go?

"Let go of me you brutes!" Ah, much better. That's an unmistakable cry of absolute anger. I'm not so sure about the brutes part, but at least I can be sure where Louise is.

Ah, that's where it came from, this alley right here. Louise was surrounded by three brutish looking guys, one of which was holding Louise's arm. Okay, maybe he's just upset at her for bumping into her and- why the hell is he reaching to touch her hair? And what's with that laugh? That's a rape laugh right there. Okay, I think I've seen enough.

Before the guy could make further contact with Louise, I grabbed his arm.

"Let go, now preferably," I tell him.

Brute #1 stares at me for a bit, then I glare right back at him. Not showing emotion, he motions to brutes #2 and #3 to leave. They take off, leaving me and Louise alone in the alley. Can't say I ever expected to win a fight that never started.

Not bothering to mention how easy that was, I grab Louise by the hand and drag her off in case the brutes decide to show up with reinforcements. I could easily take them on thanks to the Gandalfar powers, but I'd rather not make a scene. After all, everyone here was celebrating the victory, and I'd hate to spoil there fun by beating up a bunch of people.

"Are you angry?" Louise asks me as we weave through the crowds.

"What? No! Why would I be angry?"

"Are you upset with my answer to your question?" Louise asks me.

"Not really. I mean, I guess it's a bit disappointing. But what other reason could you have to keep me around?"

"If I said I enjoyed your company, would that be a better answer?" Louise asks me.

"Um... Sure, I like that answer better then 'no one would care about a familiar like you.'"

"Okay then. I don't want you to leave because I enjoy your company," Louise tells me.

Louise, when you keeping dropping slight hints like that (probably not even on purpose) you make it much harder for me to deny the obvious. I can only selectively be oblivious to something for so long before I'm forced to accept it.

"Thank you, Louise. That makes me feel much better."

Louise doesn't respond, so we continue walking through this festival, or whatever it is.

I just realized, I am holding Louise's hand while we walk through a festival full of people who look like couples. Oops, I don't think I though this through. Apparently Louise hasn't noticed yet, or she'd probably rip my arm off. Ah well, it wasn't an altogether bad feeling, I'd even say it was pleasant.

"Sheesh, it's noisy here," I say as we wander around the festival.

"True," is all Louise can come up with in reply.

"It kind of reminds me of festivals and events back in my world," I say.

"Really?"

"Yeah, all the people, the shops, the food carts, If I didn't know any better, I could almost pretend I was back in my world," I say rather nostalgically.

You know what? I miss my world. I miss my family, I miss cars, I miss the internet, I miss those annoying people at school who sat next to me, I miss my school, I miss my dog, I miss my books I've still yet to read, I miss a lot of things. I don't know why this other worldly festival suddenly made me start reminiscing about home, but it did. I miss my world and everything about it. How did that song about how awesome Earth is go? Boom de ada, boom de ada? Ah well. I sighed in sadness.

I think I felt Louise tighten her grip on my hand, but it was probably just my imagination. Even if she did, it was probably because she was worried about getting lost in the crowd of people again.

"Wah!" I hear Louise shout out.

I look to see what caught her attention, and see a type of jewelry stand with all sorts of stuff on display being run by some red haired women who looked like she was in her 30s. There were necklaces, and earrings, and bracelets, and all sorts of other fancy things.

"Do you want to take a look?" I asked Louise, who nodded.

Louise practically ran for the shop and started inspecting everything on display. You know, I never expected Louise to be one who was interested in jewelry. Ah well, she can keep her interests to herself.

Eventually Louise stopped nearly dead in her tracks when she saw this one pendant. It was a kind of weird looking pendant. It was a pure black piece of what looked like glass shaped like an oval, with two gold rings going around it in a sort of "X" formation. I kind of felt like I've seen it before, but I'm not really into jewelry, so I disregarded that notion.

"Do you want it?" The shopkeep asked.

Louise nodded her head embarrassedly, though I don't know why. It's a pendant, lots of teenage girls buy pendants, what's there to be embarrassed about?

"That'll be 4 ecus," the shopkeep tells us.

What the hell's an ecu? Is it like the new gold here? Ah well, not important. Louise put down the pendant and started fishing around in her pockets, trying to find some money. Luckily I thought this might happen, so I had already taken the bag of coins I got from Henrietta and pulled out 4 coins.

"Will this do?" I ask the shop keep. She nods, takes the coins then hands the fancy pendant to Louise.

Louise puts the pendant on then looks at me. "Um... thank you."

"No problem," I tell her. Then I turn my head slightly to the right and notice something hanging on the wall of the second hand clothing store.

"Excuse me," I say as I go right up to that place. "Is that what I think it is?" I ask as I point on the wall.

The shop keep, this time a green haired guy who looks like he's in his 20s, notices what I'm pointing at and chuckles. "If you're talking about the seaman's uniform, then yes."

Actually it's a sailor's uniform, a female one at that, but I'm willing to give you the benefit of the doubt on that one.

"How much is it?" I ask.

"Three for one ecu," he tells me.

Hmm... Tempting, but was it worth the gold coin? I took one coin out and looked at it. One side had a castle on it, the other had some guy I assume is a king. Okay, heads I don't buy it, tails I do. *Flip* Damn it.

"Here you go," I say as I hand him the coin and he hands me the three uniforms.

I met back up with Louise, who was confused why I bought them. I didn't bother explaining, and decided to change the subject by asking Louise what she thought of her new pendant. That got her, and she started talking on and on about how much she loved it, how the black glass caught the light perfectly, or how amazingly well made the gold rings were. I let her ramble on and pulled out another coin. Okay, heads for Louise, tails for Emily. *Flip* Damn it.

***Scene Break***

When we got back to the academy I went to go see if Emily would cospl- I mean wear the sailor uniform. When I got there I realized it was kind of a bad idea and turned to leave, but Emily showed up, saw the sailor uniform and practically squealed in joy.

"Oh my god!" She cried out as she grabbed the sailor uniform from my hands. "I've always wanted to wear one of these!"

"Really?"

"Yeah! I saw one when I was in town on errands and I really wanted to buy it, but I didn't bring any extra money! I've spent a few days afterwords seeing just what would go best with it! Meet me in the courtyard in a few minutes!" She says as she pushes me out of the kitchen.

A few minutes later, I was waiting in the courtyard for Emily to show up. Luckily it was pretty close to nighttime so there probably wouldn't be anyone to peek. Probably.

"I'm here!" I hear Emily cry out. "How do I look?"

I turn to where Emily's voice is coming form and... Ah, damn it. She looked really cute. She was wearing the sailor shirt and skirt, but she was also wearing those socks (or would they be stockings?) that came up to a little above mid thigh. Zettai Ryouki Grade: A+ (Points for the twin tails her hair is always in, but no Tsundere personality so no grade S). The whole package was amazing. The shirt just barely made it down to the skirt, and the skirt was not terribly short, but it wasn't really that long either. Oh god, the only way this could be any more amazing was if she had a ponytail, but that's my interests talking again.

"Stop being silent and say something!" Emily says to me. "How do I look?" She asks as she spins around a bit, causing the skirt and her hair to go spinning around.

It's only been about three seconds since you first asked.

"It looks pretty amazing," I tell her.

She smiles and winks at me. "Thanks, but why did you buy this? You're not going to ask me to put on a show for you, are you?"

"Wh-what! No! I just happened to see it when walking around town with Louise. It was three for one ecu, and the coin came up heads, so I bought them."

"You flipped a coin to see if you should by them?" Emily asks as she tilts her head to the side. I swear, she's trying to make herself adorable on purpose to spite me. "What, were you thinking about giving it to Louise, but the coin came up the other way so you gave it to me first?"

... How did she know? "Partially. Like I said, I have a spare, so you can keep that if you want."

Emily punches the air once in triumph. "Yes!" She cries out as she spins one more time.

"Ehem," I hear off to the side.

I turn and see Guiche and some large kid standing there. Large as in round, not large as in big and muscular.

"May I help you, Guiche and what's-your-name?" I ask the two of them, pretending nothing is wrong.

"My name's Malicorne," round one tells me.

"Then how may I help you, Guiche and Malicorne?"

"What is with those clothes?" Guiche asks while pointing at Emily.

"Nothing," I say. "Just a little cosp- I mean, Emily wanted to try them on and asked my opinion on them." I have got to stop referring to it as cosplay. They won't understand and this is completely different from that.

"It's outrageous!" Guiche cried. "Absolutely terrible!"

"I've never had my senses attacked so horribly!" Malicorne cries.

Emily pouts. "Fine, be that way you jerks. I'm off to the kitchen," Then she runs off. Hmmm... Maybe grade S is within her reach after all.

Guiche rubs his chin. "Not bad though," he says quietly.

"Absolutely," Malicorne says while nodding his head.

"Then what the hell are you two here for?" I ask them.

Guiche looked at me and then grabbed my shoulders. Do I need an adult?

"You... Where did you buy that outfit?" He asks me.

"What, are you going to give it your ex, Momo, as an apology?" I ask as I shake his shoulders off.

"M-maybe!" he says in a tone that's trying to imply that he's not going to. He fails.

"Fine, I have a spare, I'll give it to you," I tell him. After all, he'd probably try and blackmail me by threatening to tell Louise what just happened, and I value my skin with out whip marks, and I value my body not being in a bunch of bloody giblets from an explosion.

"What about me?" Mailcorne asks.

"Who would you give it to?" I ask him.

"I have... people," he says.

Who? You, yourself, and your body? No thanks, After giving one to Guiche I'd only have one left, and I'd rather not see it on you.

"Well, sorry, The one I'm giving to Guiche is the last one I have," I tell him.

He hangs his head in sadness, but goes off on his merry way. I give the spare sailor outfit to Guiche so he can give it to Montmorency, and he rushes off. Something tells me I probably shouldn't have done that.

***Scene Break***

You know, sometimes I think I have some degree of precognition. It's not that I can predict the future, quite the opposite, usually whatever I say has the opposite effect. I said that the red lizard that was stalking couldn't possibly be anything important. The lizard kidnapped me, brought me to Kirche's room, and started a chain of events that led to Louise starting to develop a habit of whipping me, but she also bought me a sword. I said Louise probably didn't have a fiancé, and she did. I said he was probably going to betray us, and I was right, but that's just because it's always the most trusted person who always betrays us. I said we probably wouldn't find anything that could link this world and my world, we found the Zero Fighter. I said Albion probably wouldn't invade, and they invaded. The point is, the universe loves proving me wrong, probably because I make it too easy. So when I gave the spare sailor outfit to Guiche for Montmorency, I really should have known better.

Why? Because the second Montmorency walked into class today, everyone's eyes were on her because, you guessed it, she was wearing the sailor outfit. Honestly it didn't look that bad. It looked better on Emily, in my opinion, but Montmorency was still capable of making it work really well. Then again so could most girls, so I guess it's not really something to make a note of.

The second Louise saw Montmorency she frowned and looked at me. "Isn't that that outfit you bought back in town?"

"Why yes, I believe it is," I say. "That or a reasonable facsimile."

My answer doesn't appear to satisfy Louise. "Why is she wearing it?"

"I decided it was a stupid idea to buy it, so I went to throw it away. After all, it's not like I had a use for it. Guiche saw it and asked if he could have it, since I was throwing it away. I decided to give it to him, and I guess he gave it to Montmorency," I tell her.

Okay, I know that was a pretty much a complete lie and if Louise finds out then I'm dead, but what was I supposed to tell her? That I gave it to Emily for her to dress up in and Guiche and Malicorne took notice? I'd be even deader. Besides, I'm reasonably confident in my lying skills.

Still, the fact that Louise was still glaring at me told me she was still suspicious. Figures. I could tell her the truth and she'd still be suspicious. To preserve my safety, I think I should go get the outfit back from Emily and then burn it. I think she'll understand. After all, if Louise sees Emily in that outfit and she manages to connect it to me, then I can start preparing me checklist of people I want to meet in the afterlife.

That still confuses me. Why does Louise really seem to hate Emily? I mean, whenever I mention her, even if it's something as simple as "I think I'll stop by the kitchen and talk with Emily, want to come?" Louise get's really pissed off. "Why would I want to talk with that commoner maid?" Is one of her favorite responses. I don't get it. I mean, at most me and Emily are good friends, and even if I did like her in that way, why would that upset Louise? Is she worried someone's going to steal her property? Ah well, it doesn't really concern me that much, so I should probably stay out of it. Deny the obvious, uphold the inane!

***Scene Break***

Okay, I told Emily to show up here in the courtyard, and I told her to bring the sailor outfit, so let's see how this goes.

Ah, I think I hear her coming and- Why is she wearing the sailor outfit?

"Hi!" Says Emily as she runs up. "I'm here in the outfit!" She says as she gives a spin. "That is what you wanted, right?"

"Um... No, I wanted to take the outfit back," I tell her.

I kind of expected her to be sad, or angry or something, but all Emily did was laugh.

"Aww, are you worried that little Louise is going to find out that you had me dress up in this?" She asks in a teasing manner.

"Only partially, considering you volunteered to dress in that," I tell her. "What I am worried about is her getting the wrong idea and murdering me."

At that, Emily takes another step forward, and then hugs my arm.

"Wrong idea about what?" She asks while winking.

Are you hitting on me? "Wh-what are you doing?"

"You haven't answered my question," Emily says. "Wrong idea about what?"

"Louise might think I'm doing those kinds of things to you," I tell her. Please don't ask me to elaborate.

"Aw, you don't like me?" Emily asks while faking sadness.

Before I can ask, apparently a trash can explodes and gives birth to Louise who pops out of it. Perfect, my body hasn't been whipped nearly enough today. We have to reach the quota somehow!

"Louise, I can explain, but judging by how pissed off you are, I can tell you're not going to listen, so I'm instead going to run for my life, is that okay?"

Without waiting for a response, I turn around and start running.

"Get back here!" I hear Louise yell.

That's a fantastic idea, I think I'll do that.

"Bring back a souvenir!" I hear Emily yell.

Not helping.

I keep running, and I can hear that Louise is hot on my tail. I happen to value my life, so I don't think I'll stop. I'll be dead before Louise gives me a chance to say anything.

Eventually I notice a door is slightly ajar, so I open that and run in, only to see Guiche and Montmorency having a romantic candlelit dinner. They turn in surprise when they hear me enter.

"Hi, sorry for busting in and ruining your moment, pretend I'm not here," I say as I dive behind the bed and cower in fear.

I hear the door open again, and someone barges in. Please don't be who I know it is.

"Where is he?" I hear Louise shout in anger.

I hear a glass get picked up, then someone drinking, then a "pwah" or whatever that sound is whenever you finish drinking something. Oh don't look at me like that, you know you make that sound too.

"I was thirsty from all that running around," Louise says, like she's explaining something. Then I hear her start marching my way.

Then she rounds the corner of the bed I'm hiding behind and sees me. I smile hesitantly, stand up and give a wave.

"Prepare your- eh?"

What's with that? Eh? If you're threatening someone, you don't exactly begin to question yourself.

I don't have time to ask, because then Louise glomps onto me and starts crying. Wha-

"Idiot!" Louise says.

"What?" I ask her. How am I an idiot? Why aren't you trying to kill me? I guess I should be happy that apparently I'm not on death row anymore, but this is kind of creepy.

"Idiot, idiot! Why? Why?"

Then she let go and started hitting me. She wasn't really hitting me so much as lightly tapping my chest with her fists.

"I'm sorry, what's currently happening right now?" I ask.

I see that Guiche seems just as confused as I am, and Montmorency currently has her palm attached to her forehead.

"Stop looking at them!" Louise yells at me. "Why won't you look at me? Why are you so mean to me?"

Then she buried her head in my chest and continued weeping. I'm sorry, did I miss the part where Louise acted like this at any point in her life previously?

"Um... I think we broke Louise," I tell Guiche and Montmorency.

"Why do you say things like that?" Louise asks me with a sob. "You hate me, don't you?"

*Sigh* Yare yare.

***Scene Break***

When I woke up the following day, Louise was, of course, sleeping right next to me which gave me enough time to ponder what the hell happened yesterday. I honestly don't care what anyone says, short of mind rape, I cannot see Louise being in her right state of mind acting like that at all towards anyone, least of all me. Especially considering the sudden mood swing. One does not simply turn from the murderous physical incarnation of all that terrifies me into a love struck teenage girl. ... Well, not with these extremes, anyway.

As I continued to lie there, trying to piece together what the hell happened, Louise woke up. Her eyes slowly fluttered open, and seemed to scan the room before settling on me.

"Um... Good morning," I tell her.

Louise blushed and hid half of her face beneath her blanket. Okay, it's cute, but Louise wouldn't act like that. Well, as far as I know. Maybe when she really, really, is in love with someone she acts like that, but that can't be it. Even if she was in love with me, just last night she was ready to kill me. I'd accept this behavior if it was something that was sort of slowly built up, not just dropped on me like a ton of bricks.

"Forgive me?" Louise asked while peaking out from behind her little blanket.

"I'm sorry, what?" I ask. What could she possibly be asking forgiveness for, the time she tried to kill me? That time she tried to whip me? That other time she tried to kill me?

All Louise did was repeat those two words repeatedly before finally gazing at me with helpless puppy dog eyes. Well, it's kind of a weak spot for me, but I'm rather resistant to the puppy dog look. I better not mention any of my interests or she'll definitely exploit them to do who know what.

"I can't forgive you if you don't tell me what you want me to forgive," I tell her, "What's the matter with you?"

"I had a dream last night," Louise tells me while sitting up.

Now please explain how this warrants my forgiveness.

"In my dream you were very mean," Louise tells me while grabbing my hand. "No matter how loud I talked you ignored me and talked with other girls."

Not answering my question. This warrants my forgiveness because, why exactly?

"Still," Louise continues, "That was yesterday. Don't buy gifts for other girls, and don't look at other girls. You have your master, don't you?" _I still don't get it. What the hell was up with that "forgive me" spiel she just went on? Wait. _

Oh crap, I was right the first time. Louise is a yandere. Shit. Altered state of mind or not, this was terrifying. If I so much as glance in the direction of a girl I can assume they'll be exploded into bloody chunks, can't I?

Louise then grabbed me and buried her face in my chest. "Tell me truthfully, who do you love most in this world?"

Well, she clearly wants to hear that I love her most, but honestly I've never really thought about that. Do you think she'd accept "Can I get back to you later on that question?" Probably not, therefore I should probably just say what she wants to here and internally debate on that question further, at another time.

"Master Louise," I tell her.

"Lies," is her response.

Damn, she's also incredibly doubtful in humanity. Honestly I'm not sure if that statement is a lie or not, but if I say "Yeah, I'm lying, I love X way more then you," then Louise is going to have whole lot of new red paint for her walls.

"I'm not lying. At least as far as I'm aware," I added that last part under my breath.

"Really?"

Considering you'd kill me if I said I am lying... "No, I'm not lying."

Then Louise either fell on me or pushed me down, because now I was lying on the bed with Louise on top of me, embracing me tightly. Please for the love of all that is good with the universe, don't let anyone open the door at this particular moment. Actually, that might be helpful. Let me try again. Oh no! I sure hope nobody barges in and catches me and Louise in this situation! ... Nothing. Damn it.

"Louise, don't you have classes to go to or something?" I ask. "What's more important, education or hugging me?"

"It's fine," Louise says. "They weren't going to teach anything important anyway."

"How do you know when you're not attending them?"

"Being with you to make sure you don't flirt with other girls is much more important," Louise tells me. "Do any of my classes teach that?"

Yes, actually, walk around 50 feet behind me, turn left and it's in the first room on your left called "get the hell off of me, please."

***Scene Break***

After an arduous several hours of trying to keep Louise's virginity intact (which was not an easy feat. You do not want to know about half of the things she either tried or suggested) Louise had fallen asleep. I decided to leave and talk with Emily to see if she knew anything.

"Joshua!" Emily said when she saw me. "How's it going?"

"I've been better," I tell her. "After you got Louise all pissed off at me last night-"

"Sorry about that by the way," Emily throws in. "You're just fun to tease like that, but I didn't know Louise would overhear. Did she take it well?"

How do I respond to that? "Well, no. She tried to kill me, so I hid in Montmorency's room. Then Louise got all dere- I mean, love struck. She was complaining about how I never pay attention to her and how I don't love her enough. Any idea what happened?"

Emily ponders for a bit. "Okay, describe the events that led up to her becoming like that in as much detail as you can. Go."

"After you unintentionally provoked Louise, she started chasing after me shouting all sorts of death threats. As a result, I ran and tried to lose her. I noticed a door was slightly ajar so I entered it, and I was in Montmorency's room. Montmorency and Guiche were having a dinner of some kind, but that didn't interest me so I hid behind Momo's bed. Louise came in, said something about being thirsty, found me behind the bed, and then started hugging me and complaining about me not looking at her."

Emily nods. "Do you know if she actually drank anything?"

"Well, I did hear some glass being picked up then put down, and I think I did hear someone drinking. Montmorency did have some wine on her table, I remember, but I didn't get a look at it after Louise changed so I don't know if it was actually drank or not."

"I see," Emily is silent for a minute, like she's thinking. "My information network has informed me that Montmorency has been saving up her money, probably to buy some potion ingredients, though I don't know what for."

"And that involves Louise, how?" I ask.

"This is just speculation on my part, but do you know what a love potion is?"

I nod. "You think Louise took one on accident?"

Emily nods. "If Montmorency was busy trying to make a love potion and invited Guiche over for a dinner so he could drink it, but Louise drank it first then saw you, then I think we have a solid idea of what happened."

"Okay, so I just go to Montmorency and demand the antidote?"

Emily shrugs. "I'm a commoner, I don't know the explicit details of how magic potions work. For all I know the only way to cure Louise is to make out with her for 12 minute straight."

I shiver goes down my spine. "I pray it doesn't come to that."

"Why not?" Emily asks. "If you don't mind me asking," _I do. _"Why do you want to fix Louise? Isn't this preferable to her threats, which she sometimes follows through with, to whip and starve you?"

I shake my head. "You think I'm going to take advantage of Louise when she's like this? First, I don't love her anywhere near enough to even think following her up on any of her offers. Two, What if the potion wears off and she doesn't forget any of what happened? I'd be dead within seconds."

Emily frowns. "That's kind of a selfish way of thinking. You're not following through because you're only worried about what her reaction is and how badly she'll kill you?"

"Yes and no," I say. "That's part of the reason, but you really think I'm the kind of person who would take advantage of anyone who wasn't in their right state of mind? The way I see it, if it isn't something they would do normally, it isn't something you should go along with. If your friend wouldn't sleep in front of a carriage normally, you shouldn't join them if they do that while drunk."

"I don't think you should sleep in front of a carriage at all," Emily says.

"Yeah, that was a bad example. The point is, I'm not taking advantage of a Louise that only 'loves' me because she took a love potion," I tell Emily.

Emily slowly claps. "You have my congratulations on upholding the basic principles of morals."

See, you say that and it sounds like you're mocking me.

***Scene Break***

"Do I have to go back in there?" I ask myself as I stand in front of Louise's door.

The meeting with Montmorency went well enough. She admitted to having accidentally given Louise the love potion (it was meant for Guiche, Awww!) and said she'd look into making an antidote. After I threatened her a little. Turns out love potions are illegal, go figure. It was a pretty awesome scene. I used my debate skills again and completely tore Montmorency until she agreed to make an antidote.

Unfortunately, that left me with no choice but to go back into Louise's room. Not even the darkest recesses of my mind would let me wonder what Louise had been doing since I was gone, or what she was planning to do once I entered. Still, I didn't really have a choice. All that was left was to open the door.

As soon as I opened the door and entered the room, I immediately knew something was wrong. It smelled really good, like someone lit a scented candle. _Dear god, don't tell me Louise turned our room into a love nest._

Unfortunately, the room was now a love nest. Candles, incense, mood lighting, and Louise wearing only her uniform's shirt lying on the bed, trying to be seductive. Were you just lying on the bed like that waiting for me to return? How long have you been like that?

"Where have you been?" Louise asked in a teary voice.

"Out," I say. I'm far too nervous to come up with anything else.

"You left me all alone," Louise says, sounding like she's on the verge of tears.

"So-sorry," I say, while trying to keep my gaze from Louise's skirt-less lower half.

Louise pulled the hem of her shirt down and started walking towards me, and I might just have noticed something I really shouldn't have.

"L-Louise, why aren't you wearing any underwear?" I ask.

I didn't see that part of her lower half, but I did see the side of her shirt lift up a little showing her waistline a bit, and she didn't appear to be wearing anything. Louise, naked save for a shirt that's just barely long enough to keep her modesty, and hopped up on love potion was slowly approaching me. I... might be in trouble.

"Because I'm not sexy enough," _Well, there's really nothing you can do about that, it's mostly all in the genes. _"I know this because night after night you sleep with me but never do anything."

Actually it's because I value my life. Your sexiness, or lack thereof according to you, has absolutely nothing to do with it.

"So what you're saying is you want me to have sex with you?" I ask nervously.

"Is that bad?"

"Very much so, for a variety of reasons."

"I can shut my eyes for an hour," Louise tells me. "I can pretend not to know."

That doesn't solve the problem. Okay, let's break the news to Louise, how's she going to take it? I grab Louise's shoulders and make sure she's looking at my face.

"Louise, the reason you think you're in love with me is because you took a mind altering potion," it has nothing to do with how awesome you think I am.

"Potion?"

I nod. "Completely correct. Remember yesterday when you were running after me trying to kill me, and you drank that wine that was in Montmorency's room?" Louise hesitates, then nods. "Well there was a love potion in that wine, and since I was the first person you saw, now you think you love me."

"It's not because of the potion!" _I'm pretty sure it is. _"I know this because whenever I see you my heart won't stop beating, and it's hard to breathe and-"

"Yeah, no," I say. "As good as it would be for me if those were your real feelings," _because it means less pain for me._ "They're not, so try to suppress your baser instincts and wait until we get the antidote ready before you start thinking about how you feel about me."

Louise looks at me for a minute. "I don't understand, but I don't care. Hug me tightly or I won't go to bed."

I'm impressed. Even when helplessly in love with me due to a mind altering drug, Louise still manages to bring out her tsuntsun side. Give the girl a round of applause, she deserves it.

"If I hug you you'll go to sleep?" And leave me alone?

Louise nods. So I give her a hug, then carry her onto the bed. She then immediately grabs my arm and puts her head on my shoulder.

"Don't go anywhere," Louise tells me. "I don't want you to leave me."

"Right, I'll stay," it's not like a have a choice in the matter.

"Really?" Louise asks me.

"Yes, now please go to sleep."

Louise nodded.

"I love you, Josh," She tells me before closing her eyes. Eventually her breath becomes slow and even, so she's fallen asleep.

As for me? It's not to hard to figure out what thoughts were keeping me up that night. Did Louise seriously just say that? Love potion or not, those are not words I ever expected to come out of her mouth ever, least of all directed at me. Even if it's because of a love potion, and I know that, why the hell does hearing those words make me feel so giddy? Wait... Don't tell me... Goddamn it. Seriously me? With her? It could have been anyone in any world, and it had to be her? Well shit.

***Scene Break***

Okay, so that went terribly. Montmorency claimed she couldn't make the antidote because the most important ingredient was sold out, such is our luck. So in order to get that ingredient, the tear of the water spirit, Me, Guiche, Montmorency, and Louise who refused to let me go anywhere without her, were heading towards Ragdorian Lake to talk the water spirit into giving us a tear.

"Out of curiosity, is the tear an actual tear, like she has to cry and we get it, or is that just a name?" I ask Montmorency as we ride.

"Of course it's just a name, you idiot!" Montmorency yells at me.

Well excuse me for asking, princess. "So how do we get it then?" I ask.

"We ask the Water Spirit for part of her body," Montmorency tells me. "If she likes us enough, then she'll grant us what we request."

"And if she doesn't like us?"

"At best, she refuses," Montmorency tells me.

"Should I bother asking what a worse case scenario is?" I ask.

"She kills us on the spot."

"Let's hope she's in a good mood."

"Josh, why do you keep talking with Montmorency?" Louise asks me.

"Because she's the only one who knows how to get you back to your regular self," I tell the me-obsessed girl currently sitting behind me on the same pony.

"You're lying," Louise says as she grabs me from behind. "You like Montmorency more then me, don't you?"

"You see, that's something I can truthfully say 'no' to," _especially give me little epiphany last night. I still hate myself for that._

My answer either really pleases Louise, or doesn't, because she tightens her grip on my waist. I really hope the water spirit gives us that tear. I don't know how much longer I can deal with this Louise.

Two hours of horseback riding later, and I was no longer able to bear offspring. At least, that's what it felt like. I'm sure they're intact, but I'll be hurting for a long time. Oh, and we also reached Ragdorian Lake. Apparently something about it confuses Montmorency.

"That's not right," she says.

"What?" Guiche asks.

"The lake should be several feet lower then it is," Montmorency says. "It shouldn't be anywhere near this high up."

"Well, that's one more question for the water spirit, now isn't it?" I ask. "How do we contact her, anyway?"

"I'll do that," Montmorency tells us. "Since my family holds the contract, out of the four of us here, only I can call her."

"I heard contracts are really hard to come by. How'd your family get one?" I ask.

"How should I know?" Montmorency yells at me. "We've had the contract for over a hundred years, no one knows how we got it!"

The water spirit does, maybe that's another question we can ask?

Montmorency takes out her familiar, Robin the Frog, and Louise squeals in fear and hides behind me. Nobody told me Louise was scared of frogs, when and how did this happen? Montmorency took out a small needle and cut her finger. She let a drop of blood fall on her familiar's back.

"Robin, I need you to go find the water spirit," Momo tells her frog. "Ask her to come here. She should response when she senses the blood."

Montmorency puts her frog on the ground, and it hops into the lake, then disappears from sight beneath the surface. Louise calms down when it leaves. I could probably use this opportunity to ask Louise why she's afraid of frogs, but considering her current state of mind she'd probably just thank me for saving her life from the evil amphibian then offer me a "reward." I'm not even sure how that train of logic works.

"So all we have to do is ask the water spirit for a tear?" I ask, just to make sure.

Momo nods. "Yes. We just ask and hope she agrees." After all, I'm sure you'd hate to eat prison food for the rest of your life.

Eventually Robin reaches the surface again, and jumps into Montmorency's hand. A giant column of water rises out from the surface of the lake and starts swirling around. It keeps swirling until I can see it starting to make out a shape. That shape just happened to be a translucent, giant, naked Montmorency complete with barbie doll anatomy, so there was nothing for Guiche to get excited over. ... I'm tempted to make an unfitting End of Eva reference for some reason. I'll suppress the urge.

"Great water spirit!" Montmorency calls out. "It is I, Montmorency of the Montmorency family!" _Her last name is Montmorency? That's absolutely terrible. _"We come to ask for your services! Do you remember the contract you made with my family?"

The water spirit looks at Momo for about a minute.

"I remember the water that floods through you body, insignificant mortal, what is it you seek?" _How about a smaller ego for you, spirited one? I mean seriously? Insignificant mortals?_

"We beseech you, may we have a piece of your body?" Montmorency asks.

The water spirit is silent for a bit, still glaring intently at Momo. "I refuse."

"Is that so?" Montmorency beings. "Well, we'll just be leaving, sorry to both-"

"Hey water spirit!" I yell, prompting everyone's gaze to turn to me.

"Yes, mortal?" The spirit asks me.

"Joshua, what do you think you're doing?" Momo asks me.

"Sprit, we came all this way to ask you for just a small piece of your body," I say, ignoring Momo. "Not a large part at all, just a tear. Look around you, you've got tons of water to make up for any damage done as a result, and when it rains you get even more! Do you know why we want that part of your body?"

"I assume it is the reason most men who come here do," the water spirit tells me. "To sell in order to gain wealth for themselves."

I shake my head. "Not even close. See this pink haired girl clinging onto me?" I say while gesturing to Louise. "She's recently accidentally drank a love potion. As a result, her mind is become altered, and she's not herself. We need a part of your body to make an antidote and fix her."

"So, you wish for a part of my body to help your friend?" The spirit asks.

I nod. "That is all we are requesting from you."

The water spirit regards me coldly, but doesn't say anything, which makes me really nervous.

"Very well," _Whoa shit, really? _"I will grant you a part of my body on one condition," the water spirit tells me.

"Name it."

"At night, two mages come to attack me. I do not know who they are, or why they attack me. My mission for you is to repel them, stop them from attacking me. Do this and I will grant you a part of my body."

I nod. "Understood. We will call upon you again when the mission is accomplished."

With that, the Water spirit melts back into the lake, leaving Guiche and Montmorency to just gawk at me for some reason.

"What were you thinking!" Momo shouts at me. "If you said one wrong thing we would've been dead in an instant!"

"I didn't did I?" I say in reply. "Considering you have first hand experience, I thought you would have learned to not doubt my abilities to form an argument."

Guiche nods. "I admit, I was rather impressed at how calm you were as you talked down one of the most powerful beings in existence. I'm more worried about what we have to do. Do we really have to fight off two mages?"

"What? No!" I tell him. "The Water spirit never said we had to fight them, she just said we have to stop their attacks. I say we talk with them first. We should avoid a fight if we can help it."

Momo nods. "I agree, I would like to avoid a fight if at all possible."

"So who's going to be the representative who talks with the mages?" I ask. "It has to be someone who has experience talking with people."

Guiche and Montmorency glare at me like I'm an idiot.

"Partner, I think they just nominated you," Derflinger tells me.

"Oh. Right. Well, now we just need to wait for the mages to show up."

It was about half an hour before the mages showed up, and Louise had fallen asleep, thank god. The three of us who were awake were currently waiting around, keeping a lookout for whoever showed up.

"How much longer until they show up?" Guiche complained.

"If you keep talking, forever," I tell him. "What if they hear us and take off? We can't afford to camp out here every night."

"Both of you, be quiet," Momo says. "I think they're here."

She points at the hooded figures. One's short, the other's taller. See Princess? This is how you do hoods, I can't see their face at all! That staff that the shorter one is carrying seems familiar, but I guess we'll see.

"Okay, wish me luck," I tell the group before heading out to play diplomat.

I walked up to the two, who hadn't yet noticed me.

"Nice night for a stroll, isn't it?" I ask the two of them, who the wheel around and point either their wand or staff at me.

"Hey, don't be like that. I just wanted to talk a bit," I tell them. "Can we start with you taking off those hoods so I know who I'm talking too?"

They take off their hoods revealing Yuki Tabitha and Kirche. You know, I should be more surprised then I am. I think we've already been over this, someone always shows up to crash the party and join the mission.

"Tabitha? Kirche? What are you two doing here?" I ask.

"We could ask the same thing," Kirche says. "What are you doing here darling?"

Damn it, she's still calling me that? After I've pretty much done everything in my power to tell her I'm not interested? Oh well, some people are just naturally crazy.

I took Yuki Tabitha and Kirche back to the camp, and we all exchanged our reasons for being here. Yuji Tabitha was ordered by someone to kill the water spirit since she was raising the water level. We explained how Louise had accidentally drank a love potion and how we had to stop the attackers. Since our two goals kind of contradicted (we stop Yuki Tabitha and Kirche from killing the water spirit, Yuki Tabitha's screwed. We let them kill the water spirit, Louise is stuck like this) we came to the agreement to talk to the water spirit.

We had Montmorency call up the water spirit again so we could ask her how to lower the water level. That unmistakeable column of water rises from the lake, and takes Montmorency's form once again. Okay, let's do this.

"Water spirit, we have stopped the attackers," I tell her.

The water spirit nods. "Very good. Since you have upheld your part of the contract, I will uphold mine."

A small tear shaped piece detaches itself from the water spirit's left shoulder, and slowly floats towards us. Guiche catches the tear in a battle and corks it. Mission, nearly accomplished.

"Thank you water spirit, but there is one last thing we need to discuss with you," I tell her.

"And that is?"

"The whole reason these two tried to kill you was because you have been raising the water level of Ragdorian Lake," I tell the water spirit. "The humans aren't too happy with that, and will undoubtedly send more until the water level is brought back to normal. Is there anything we can do to get you to reduce the water level?"

The water spirit is silent, probably thinking whether or not we're trustworthy.

"Since you upheld the last contract, I believe I can trust you," the water spirit says at last.

"Thank you. What is it you want us to do?"

"About 30 months ago, my most important possession was stolen from the deepest part of my lake," the water spirit tells us. Well, actually is seems more like it's directed solely at me.

"So that's why you're raising the water level?" I ask. "You want to flood the world so you can reclaim you're treasure?" It's either that or you're trying to take vengeance, and the water spirit doesn't seem like the type to try and take revenge on anyone.

The water spirit nods. Considering it's been two months and the lake's apparently only risen a couple feet, you've got a ways to go if you want to flood the world, especially if it turns out the ring's somewhere in Albion.

"Are all spirit's as patient as you?" I wonder aloud.

"Our concept of time is different then yours," the water spirit tells me. "For me, all time is the same. The present and the future are no different to me."

Well that's interesting. I wonder what that feels like, not being able to differentiate the future and the past.

"So what is the treasure you want us to get?" I ask.

"My treasure is the Ring of Andvarri. It was stolen by a man who goes by the name of Cromwell."

"Isn't he the new leader of Albion?" Kirche asks.

Yikes, that's going to take a while to get to for the water spirit. Albion's, what, 3000 feet in the air?

"Anyone here heard of the ring?" I ask while I turn to the group. "Anyone know what it does?"

"I've heard it can grant false life to the dead, and they have to obey whoever raises them," Montmorency tells me. _Oh, so it's the magical ring equivalent of the T-Virus._

"Water spirit, forgive me if I'm rude, but what could a water spirit possibly need a ring that resurrects the dead for?" I ask.

"That is none of your concern," the water spirit sort of yells at me.

Wait, did the water spirit just emote? It was anger, but there was something else. Is she blushing? Can water blush? I'm sensing that the water spirit and that ring have a history together.

"You're right, I apologize for asking," I say. "I promise to find your ring if you lower the lake's water level back down to what it was normally."

Having said all she needs to, the water spirit turns and dissolves back into the lake. Our mission's accomplished, so let's head home and fix Louise. I've already forgotten how long Louise has been hopped up on love potion, but it's way to long.

***Scene Break***

After finishing up at Ragdorian Lake, we immediately headed back for Montmorency's room so she can start making the antidote and fix Louise as soon as possible.

"How much longer until the potion's done?" I ask Montmorency.

"Just another minute or so, be patient."

"I don't know if we have another minute, Louise still hasn't let go of my waist."

"Josh, stop talking with Monmorency!" Louise yells at me while tightening her grip on my waist.

"Help? Please?" I ask.

Montmorency is silent for about a minute. "Done! I think it's finished."

I'm far too willing to fix Louise to even bother acknowledging the "I think" part of that sentence. Montmorency picks up a flask full of some clear liquid and hands it to me.

"So I just have to convince Louise to drink this?" I ask.

"That's correct."

"Before I do that, I have a question. Will Louise keep her memory of the events?" I ask Montmorency. After all, somehow this day will turn to shit for me, and this seems like the best option for that.

Montmorency nods solemnly. So now all that's left is to hand this flask to Louise so I can die. That makes me feel good about myself.

"Louise, would you mind letting go of me for a minute?"

"No. You'll leave me alone again," Louise tells me angrily.

"Okay then. Montmorency, stand by the door or something to convince Louise I can't get out of here, please," and also make it so that when we fix Louise I can't get out, but we'll deal with that when we get to it.

Montmorency stands in front of the door way, and that seems to calm Louise down. She lets go of my waist, but still refuses to be anywhere other then a foot away from me.

"Now Louise, would you mind drinking this for me?" I ask as I offer Louise the antidote.

Louise looks at the flask, then shakes her head. "No, it smells funny."

"Please, drink it?" I offer.

"If I drink it will you kiss me?" Louise asks.

... "Yes, I'll kiss you." It's not like she'll want to kiss me when she's done drinking anyway.

Louise nods, then takes the flask from me. She starts drinking it, and I turn to Montmorency, and I motion for her to step aside. She understands so I exit the room to hopefully prolong my life about 33 seconds. I step out the door, and start walking down the stairs. I make it about 4 steps down when I hear Louise scream. It was an ear-splitting, terrible shriek that could only be described as being made of pure rage and embarrassment.

"How long do you think I have?" I ask Derflinger.

"I give you 4 seconds."

4, 3, 2, Crash! Louise tackles me to the ground and uses me as a sled to ride down the stairs.

"Is there anything I can say to persuade you to not kill me?!" I ask in a panic. I value my life far too much to want it to end right now.

"You... I... That..." Louise isn't even forming sentences anymore, so much as words that could loosely be considered related.

"If it makes you feel any better, I hated it to! I don't even know which of us hated it more!" I try to tell her.

Unfortunately, an angry Louise is a terrible thing. An embarrassed Louise can be a terrible thing. An angry, embarrassed Louise is one of the worst things that can walk any planet. It's safe to say, Louise needed something to use a stress relief. Unfortunately that reliever was me.

Roughly half an hour later, me and Louise were sitting on a bench in the courtyard. Actually, I was lying on it limply. Saying Louise was upset is kind of an understatement. I'm convinced Louise held back though. If she hadn't I'd be dead, and I'm currently still barely breathing. About halfway through the beating Louise's punches stopped having as much force behind them. I think she might have realized it wasn't completely my fault. Don't get me wrong, I completely acknowledge that a part of it is my fault for buying that stupid sailor outfit in the first place, but do I really deserve all the blame? Probably. I don't know exactly how badly beaten I was, but I was sore everywhere.

"Feeling better now?" I ask Louise as she seems to refuse to look at me, and can you blame her?

"I-If I was normal I n-never would have done or s-said any of that!" Louise yells at me. "Really!"

By this point I think I know that better then you do.

"I'm aware," I tell Louise.

A minute or so of sweet, sweet, silence.

"You're a person too," _I am? I thought I was a dog._ "You could have resisted a little. I went to far this time!" Louise yells at me.

I'm pretty sure that's the closest Louise will ever get to apologizing for hitting me.

"It's fine," I tell her.

"And why is that?" Louise asks.

"Because I can kind of understand how you feel," I tell her. "You refused to let me out of sight, you offered those things, and said others. I know you're not the type of person that would ever forgive that if anyone said it, much less you saying it yourself. Besides, I admit to having partial blame for the entire event." _Mental note: Never buy a sailor outfit ever again. _"It's the past anyway, don't worry about it too much."

"I'm not worried! I just want to forget it ever happened!" Louise yelled at me. _Trust me, I do too._

"Josh?"

"Yes, Louise?"

"Um... When I was under the influence of the potion... Why didn't you do anything?" Louise asks me.

What, and risk your wrath? I've already had this conversation with Emily, so I'll just give the main reason.

"Because you weren't in your right state of mind," I tell Louise. "Did you really think I was someone to take advantage of a girl who wasn't thinking straight, especially you?"

"What's so special about me?" Louise asks.

"I'm sorry, I don't quite understand," I say.

"You said you wouldn't do that to a girl who wasn't thinking straight, _especially_ me. Why single me out like that?" Louise asks while not looking at me.

Slightly because I happen to value my life, but I acknowledge (but don't accept!) that it's not the only reason.

"Well... You're my master, so you're automatically important, and you give me food and a place to sleep," I say off the top of my head. I'm sure there are other reasons I could give in place of _that_ reason, but that's all I care to think up at the moment.

Again, there's that awkward silence. Eventually, Louise sighs.

"I'm sorry, I'll try not get angry anymore," Louise says. "You're a person, you have the right do what you want to."

"It's fine," I tell Louise. "You can't promise you won't get mad, and you're my master so you technically have a right to do what you want and keep me from doing what I want. So I say to you, just do what you want." Now I can only pray that what she wants to do doesn't constitute beating me with a whip, otherwise I just gave her a free pass to practically murder me.

Again, awkward silence. Is this how it's going to be from now on? That annoys me.

"It was pretty nostalgic being to Ragdorian Lake," Louise says eventually.

"Oh, you've been there before?" I ask as I finally decide to sit up.

Louise nods. "Once when I was thirteen. I used to accompany the princess there from time to time. I think that's where she met Prince Wales?"

"Really now?" Honestly this only slightly interested me, but it was better then the silence.

Louise nods again. "Sometimes the princess would tell me, 'I'm going to go for a walk, would you please lie in my bed and pretend to be me, Louise?' In hindsight, I'm pretty sure that's when she would meet with the prince."

Now, that is interesting. Before I can reply to it, Kirche and Yuki Tabitha jump out from behind something.

"I remember!" Kirche cries "That was Wales!"

"What were you two doing!?" Louise asks while blushing for one reason or another.

"Listening," Yuki Tabitha tells us.

Kirche laughs sheepishly. "Well... Yeah. I wanted to see you two make up. It was pretty pathetic though, you two could have at least kissed or something."

"Why would we do that?!" Me and Louise cry at the same time.

"Well, you two are obviously in love, aren't you?" Kirche says.

"We are not in love!" We both yell at Kirche.

Kirche chuckles. "Right, of course not. Anyway, like I said, I thought I had seen his face before back during Germania's Emperor Inauguration ceremony. I remember now, it was Prince Wales."

"And that has what in common with you're previous statement about that being Wales?" I ask.

"When we were first heading for Ragdorian Lake we passed a bunch of people riding horses," Kirche tells us. "The one in the middle looked familiar to me, but I couldn't remember where I had seen his face before. Now I remember, that was Wales, alright. It's weird, there was that announcement that he died in battle, but he's still alive."

"He didn't die in battle," I say. "He was executed after the battle. It was in that newspaper, it even had a picture."

They may not have had cameras here, but they did have newspapers and access to people with the ability to draw. Wales' execution was front page news and even had a picture to accompany it. It was a pretty well done picture two. I mean, I don't think you use a sword that big to slit a throat, and Wales had about 20 gallons more projectile blood shooting out of his throat then the average person has in their entire body, but it was a pretty accurate picture, I think.

"Well, if he's dead, then who did we see?" Kirche asks. "Are you telling me what I saw was wrong?"

Me and Louise glance at each other.

"You don't think..." Louise's voice trails off.

"The Ring of Andvarri," I say. If what Montmorency said was right, then it can raise zombies. If it was in possession of the new ruler of Albion and he brought Wales back to life, then we may have a problem.

"Tabitha, can we borrow your dragon?" I ask.

"Why?" Is Nagato Tabitha's standard one word response.

"The princess is in trouble!" Louise yells at her.

"What? Why?" Kirche asks.

"No time!" Louise yells frantically. "We need to hurry!"

***Scene Break***

While we didn't quite explain to Tabitha and Kirche why Wales being back from the dead and being controlled by the head of Albion was really bad (Would you like it if someone told everyone about your love relationship with your cousin) we told them enough for them to understand how bad this was. Since Kirche said they were riding towards Ragdorian lake, we made that our destination. Along the way, we ran into a trail of sorts that Wales left behind.

And by trail, I mean blood and body parts strewn about everywhere. It looked like Kratos dropped by and said hello, that's how bloody and messy it was. They were all dead, by the way, just in case you missed that part.

"Five gold says Wales did this," I say as we examined the bodies.

"Why would he do this, though?" Louise asks.

"Remember, whoever is given the false life obeys whoever brought them back, right?" Kirche says. "It's possible Cromwell told him to kidnap the princess, no matter the cost."

I'm listening, but mostly I'm examine the bodies, just in case. Okay, this one leaning against a tree is completely dead, no heartbeat whatsoever, but he's mostly intact, except for a missing arm. I unsheathe Derflinger and stab the corpse in the face.

"Josh, why did you just stab that corpse?" Louise asks me, a hint of concern in her voice.

"Double tapping. It's a rule of a zombie apocalypse," I tell her. "I've never personally dealt with one, but back home we've got tons of media on it."

"Those movies and video games you were talking about?" Louise asks.

"Back up, what's a zombie?" Kirche asks.

"Really, you're unfamiliar with the term?"

Kirche nods.

"Zombies are what most people call the living dead," I tell her. "You know, corpses that walk again for some reason? Where I come from we have all sorts of media almost specifically designed to train us in case an apocalypse breaks out, including how to dispatch of various types of zombies."

Okay, it wasn't made to train us, but that's what it feels like. Who else do you explain everybody having a zombie in their game at some point or another? It's freaking ridiculous! I don't mind myself, but everybody seems to hate it. Where was I going with this train of thought?

"Types?" Tabitha asks.

Why am I discussing zombies when the Princess is in trouble? Right! Because she was kidnapped by one!

"There a few different types of zombies portrayed," I say. "Since a zombie outbreak hasn't happened yet, it really depends on the author of the work what type of zombies there are. Since we still have to go rescue the princess, and I doubt Wales is any one of those types, a single zombie can't do anything even remotely close to kidnapping, I'll give you the short version. Aim for the head. No matter what it is, destroying the brain should be enough to kill whatever we're fighting."

"And that's why you stabbed that corpse in the face?" Kirche asks.

I nod. "It's often really hard to tell if something's actually dead, or just mostly dead. That's why you always make sure. Of course there are zombies that are slightly resistant to that, but it's commonly accepted that it's rather lethal to them. Anyway, this conversation was fun, but don't we have a princess to save?"

Louise gasps. "R-right! We have to keep moving!"

How do you just forget that your best friend was kidnapped by a dead person?

***Scene Break***

Sure enough, when we got back to Ragdorian Lake, guess who was there? That's right, Princess Henrietta and Ex-Prince Wales. Wales looked good for someone who had recently died, but his throat did have a rather large scar on it. I think it makes him look more badass, but now's not the time to admire the enemy's baddassness.

"Wales, return the princess," I tell him while moving my hand near Derflinger.

Wales just smiles at me. "I don't believe you have the correct idea of what is happening right now. Henrietta is here completely by her own will."

I know, and that's what worries me.

"Princess! Don't stay with him!" Louise shouts. "He's a... Josh, what did you say he was?"

"Zombie."

"He's a zombie! He's been revived by Cromwell using the water spirit's ring!"

Instead of listening to us, Henrietta takes a step back and tightens her grip on Wales' arm. I tighten my grip on Derflinger's handle, causing my runes to start glowing.

"See?" Wales says. "How about a deal?"

"Deal?" Tabitha asks.

"Though we would very much like to fight you here," _That's a pretty poor attempt at sarcasm._ "We have lost our horses. Traveling by night can be dangerous, and I'd like to keep some willpower handy as a precaution, so I would appreciate it if you let us go."

Yuki Tabitha responds by forming a spear of ice, and launching it. The icicle passes straight through Wales' head, causing him to stumble back a bit, before impaling itself on a tree behind him. A moment later, Wales face fixes itself.

"Sorry, but it's useless," Wales tells us. "I can't be damaged by your attacks, though that did sting a bit."

"Oh come on, is water spirit magic really powerful enough to do things like that?" I ask. "That's just unfair."

"See Princess?" Louise says while pointing her wand at Wales. "That's not Wales, it's something else!"

"Louise, please," Henrietta says sadly. "Put away your wand. Let us go."

"Princess, what are you saying?"

"I second Master Louise's question," I say. "Since the headshot didn't kill him he's probably not a zombie, so I don't even know what he is! Whatever he is, he isn't Prince Wales anymore."

"I know that," Henrietta tells us."when our lips met, I knew that 100 times over. However, still, I do not care." _Clearly. I guess I never assumed the princess was into necrophilia._ "Neither you nor Louise have loved anyone as strongly as I love Wales," _Love potion Louise would beg to differ, as the blush on Louise's face clearly demonstrates. _"When you are really in love, you are willing to throw everything away. You-"

"Bullshit!" I yell, startling everyone here.

"Wh-what?" Henrietta says, slightly confused.

"You're right, I haven't been in love," About that... "But I'm pretty sure you don't have to have been in love to realize what you just said is stupid. So people in love are ready to give up everything up for the one they love. So when your beloved dies and asks you to come with them, you just happily grab a knife and slit your throat? When the person you love is poor and asks for money, you just sell all of your possessions so he can blow it all on something undoubtedly stupid? I'm not going to pretend I know what I'm talking about when it comes to love, but I do know that if you're willing to be whisked away into a trap, just because someone you love who is supposed to be dead and has murdered several guards who are supposed to protect you, politely asks you to, that's not love. That's borderline insanity," _Though I guess from a technical standpoint, the two are pretty similar._

"I am not insane!" Henrietta yells at me. "I swore an oath to the water spirit saying 'I swear eternal love to Wales.'" I don't care if it's a lie, my feelings aren't a lie. Let us go."

I just realized. I have no idea what I'm talking about. Crap, this is not a good way to argue. For all I know people who are really in love actually do want to give up everything. Like Romeo and Juliet! Except those two were the stupidest protagonists I've read about and the entire story was beyond stupid. I dunno, maybe Wales and Henrietta are the right ones and the rest of us here are the bad guys. Maybe I'm just being an idiot. Welp, gotta keep this argument rollin'!

"We won't," I say. "I'm not saying you're feelings are a lie, I'm saying you're letting your feelings get in the way of your judgement. I'm not saying it's bad for you to love Wales, but think about this. You're the monarch of a powerful nation that is currently at war with Albion. The leader of Albion is in possession of the water spirit's Ring of Andvarri, a ring that revives the dead and binds them into having to obey whoever revived them. You say you realize Wales isn't the real one, yet you still allow yourself to succumb to your feelings for him and put your entire nation at risk? How can you justify that!" I add while pointing for effect.

"I... I can justify it!" Henrietta yells at me.

"Then please do so," I say as I start tapping my foot and waiting for Henrietta's reply. "I'm waiting."

Henrietta looks like she's at a loss for words. Mission accomplished? Unfortunately, I was so focused on Henrietta, I didn't see Wales case a wind spell. The spell hits me in the face, and knocks me down onto the floor.

"I believe we've heard enough," Wales says coldly. "The princess is coming with me, and that's final."

"Bastard," I say under my breath as I get up and unsheathe Derflinger.

Once I'm back on my feet, I leap for Wales, only to jump headfirst into a wall of solid water. Oh come on, I know we have magic here, but how does that even work?

"I won't let allow you to hurt Wales!" Henrietta yells at me.

The wall of water moves to crush me, but then something in front of Henrietta explodes. I look and see Louise with her wand pointed at the princess.

"I don't care that you're the princess, I won't allow you to hurt Josh," Louise says in a shaky voice.

Aw, that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Too bad I don't have time to enjoy it. I get back to my feet again, only to feel a drop of water hit my head.

"Is it raining?" I ask.

As I say that, the light sprinkle turns into a heavy downpour.

"Correction, it's storming," I say as I put my hood up.

"Throw your wands down!" Henrietta shouts at us. "I don't want to kill you!"

"Are you serious?" I ask. She actually tried to convince us she was sane. Has she gone psychopathic?

"Look! Rain!"_ Really? I thought it was snowing._ "Water mages are unbeatable in the rain!" Henrietta yells at us.

"What?" I ask. "Seriously?"

The mages on my side nod nervously. Damn everything, this is going to suck, isn't it?

"Would it be a good idea to run away?" Louise asks.

"Don't ask me," I say. "You already know my answer, which is 'no' just to refresh your memory."

"Hey, I remembered something!" Derflinger shouts, drawing everyone's attention.

"The sword can talk?" Henrietta and Wales ask at the same time.

"What did you remember, Derflinger?" I ask while ignoring the hostage situation.

"I remembered the water spirit's magic, it was really nostalgic," he says wistfully.

"Hurry up and tell us you Deus ex Machina!" I yell at him.

"What's-"

"Never mind, tell you later! What did you remember?" I ask.

"Missy," Derflinger says to Louise. "Check the book. The spirit's magic and your's aren't dissimilar, and Brimir always had the perfect counter for just such events as these."

Brimir was prepared for an uprising of the undying living dead? I guess he deserves his reputation as most powerful mage ever.

Louise flips through her founder's prayer book before stopping on a page.

"Dispel?" She asks.

"Bingo!" Derflinger says. "Since you took that potion a while back, you unlocked this one. That Brimir, he always knew what to do, didn't he?"

"Less talk, more casting," I say. "This might be our chance."

Louise starts chanting, and I feel like slaughtering an army or two. I don't know what's in those arias of hers, but they're really potent.

In response to Louise, Henrietta starts up her own little aria. Only her's is finished much quicker, and it causes all of the raindrops around her to harden. Wales joins in as well, and then all the raindrops start spinning around each other. They spin faster and faster, until they form a rather large tornado of water.

"I take it it's my job to stop that tornado so Louise can cast her spell?" I ask Derflinger.

"Yep. That's the job of Gandalfar, you protect your while she casts. Those spells take a while, you know."

Yep, that sounds about right, considering the water tornado was already flying towards us and Louise was still chanting, looks like I have my work cut out for me. Right, let's go.

_Plan time. How do I stop a tornado? Or is it a land based whirlpool? Hmm... I'll think about it later. So how can I kill off this obstacle? It appears to be existing due to the combined magic spells of both Wales and the princess. Derflinger can negate and absorb magic, but I doubt he'd be able to stop a tornado on his own. I have to figure out a way to cut off the fl- Wait a freaking seconds? Thinking back way to when we were in Albion. What did Louise say? When a mage loses their wand, they can't supply the energy needed to keep the spell alive! Alright, I know what I gotta do, so let's wing it._

I started running straight for the tornado. However, when I was about 6 feet away from it, instead of charging right into it and having Derflinger absorb it like an idiot, I dodge roll to the left, get up and keep funning. I hold Derlinger out to my right and slash the base of the tornado. Derlinger can absorb spells really fast when he wants to, but even he can't absorb a tornado. That wasn't the goal though, the goal was slow the tornado down, even if by a second, and that's what I did.

The tornado didn't collapse or anything, but it march forward was slightly slowed. The tornado was never my goal anyway, my goal was Henrietta. When she sees me charging her, she starts panicking and points her wand at me. I slash upwards, and her wand is cut clean in half down the middle. With the water mage out of commission and no longer providing willpower, the water drains itself from the tornado and hits the ground with a splash. That still left us with a regular tornado that was still approaching. That's always a problem.

I turn to Wales, and charge him, and before he can reach, I swing, and his wand's also split in two. That's two mages, out of commission, and one less tornado to worry about.

"You," is all Wales says as he reaches into his sleeve and pulls out another wand and points it about an inch from my face.

_Shit! I never thought he'd have a back up wand!_

"Take th-"

Then Louise finishes her spell and lets it loose. A shockwave goes out along the lake, and Wales suddenly falls onto the ground, and the wand falls from his hands. Henrietta tries to run up to him, but slows down, then curls up on the floor, like she's taking a nap. Making tornados much be killer on your energy.

I look back at Louise, Kirche, and Tabitha and see that they're okay. They walk over and join me right next the unconscious Henrietta, and the once again, hopefully for good, corpse that was once Wales.

"You know, that's not what I had in mind when I said you'd have to protect her from the tornado," Derflinger tells me.

"Hey, it worked, and it kept me from having to stay in the tornado and risk death myself," I reply. "What idiot would actually stall the tornado by standing inside it and try to absorb it that way? Anyway, the princess is probably going to wake up soon, I'm going to go wait over there, I'm not good at the making up part of an argument."

And with that, I walk over to, and lean on one of the surrounding trees, while the other three mage girls wake up Henrietta and explain the situation to her.

I had the pleasure of watching as they held a sort of mini funeral for Wales. Considering he already died and got a funeral and nobody outside of those here would ever know this happened, it seemed right to give him a send off. After the "funeral" was over, they sent Wales' body floating down the lake. It floats a bit before sinking into the lake. I know probably better then anyone here that it's not the time to think about things like this, but how's the Water Spirit going to deal with a corpse being in her lake?

After the whole thing was finished, we took Henrietta back to the castle on Slyphid, then headed back to the academy. No one said anything during the entire flight. After we got back, we headed back to our rooms to try and get a good night's sleep. Emphasis on try, because I couldn't fall asleep at all. Louise cried herself to sleep almost as soon as we entered the room, but I don't get that kind of luck. The events of the past day or so kept playing in my head. How did we get from awkward and embarrassing love potion, to sad and depressing funeral in just a few hours? It didn't make sense to me.

At some point, Louise grabbed onto my arm in her sleep and seemed to refuse to let me go. Maybe I should have bought her a stuffed animal or something when we went shopping. Doesn't it do people good to hug and cry into something soft? I don't think my arm suits that purpose well, but I'm not going to complain. I don't feel like waking Louise up to get her to let go of me. Besides, I think I've said this before, but Louise looks much cuter when she's asleep. I swear, it is an unspoken rule that humans are required to look cuter asleep then awake. There's no other explanation. Despite the fact that I couldn't seem to stop thinking about the events that recently transpired, I managed to fall asleep.

It's probably unrelated, but it's still kind of weird, and I thought I should mention it. For some completely odd reason, I remember the dream I had that night really vividly. It wasn't weird that I remember it, it was the dream itself that was odd.

I saw two people, facing each other down on top of a building. The person on the left has long black hair braided together that reaches down past his waist. Sorry, but ponytails only look good on girls, though you gave it your best shot. He's wearing some kind of red armor, and a decorated ring on his right hand. Coincidently, his right hand is also holding the biggest sword I have ever seen in my life. I know that sounds kind of weird but his sword was freaking huge! It was practically as big as he was! Maybe it's the gandalfar ruins acting up, but I knew the sword appeared to be of German design. As in, actual German, not Germanian. Does that mean I'm dreaming of back home on Earth?

On the right side of the field is a girl with blonde (actually it was so silver it might have been white) hair tied in a ponytail (so beautiful) that just comes down past her shoulders. She was wearing a regular shirt and pants with some kind of black long coat over it, and was wielding a katana in her right hand, and a vicious looking knife in the other. What scares me is that I think I know this person. The hair color seems a bit too white, and I've never known her to use a blade, but I swear I know her. Why's she in my dreams?

There was also a third person there, but she was passed out on the floor behind the guy. She was wearing what looked like a female sailor outfit (must be a student at some school) and a long black overcoat. Since she wasn't really doing anything besides being unconscious, I didn't pay her much attention.

The guy and girl who are conscious seem to be having a conversation of some kind. I say of some kind because I can't understand a word they're saying. Damn it dreams, my Japanese isn't good enough to understand a conversation spoken by two fluent speakers!

The conversation ends with the girl giving an evil smirk that actually seems to make the guy nervous. Her hair lights up so intensely it almost seems to be made of light, and she charges the guy who readies his sword.

The two start fighting, with the girl seeming to have the advantage. The guy keeps slashing at her, but she keeps flipping and dodging it. Then again, she's not doing much better and can't seem to land a scratch on the guy either. She manages to get behind him, but the guys hair comes to life and bitch-slaps her clear across the roof. I silently ponder if it would be awesome to have controllable hair. I'd much rather have a tail, honestly.

The fight continues, and it's clear the girl is losing. The guy's starting to get some hits in, and the girl seems to be hurt just by coming in contact with his sword which really seems to be cheating.

Eventually the girl is left on the floor, grasping for breath, while the guy stands over her, apparently gloating. The girl really seems to react to something, because he hair flares up again like she just got a shot of power. She stands back up, puts her hand out, and out comes a giant stream of gigantic, white-hot flames. Awesome, victory for the girl right?

Of course not. Cheaters always cheat, so they always have close to 100 different ways out of their current situation should the opportunity arise. When the flames died down, the guy was residing inside a sort of ball made out of that hair of his. Oh, but that wasn't enough, there was also a sort of barrier of spiritual energy or something around him. Double protection. Lovely.

"Seriously? That's just cheating," the girl says in perfect English before collapsing on the spot.

After that, the guy picks up both girls, then flies off. I shudder to think what he plans to do with what looks like two underaged girls. I know it's a dream, but those two girls have my prayers for their safety. Especially the blonde one. It has to be her, but that can't be right. Why would she be shooting flames and sword-fighting people with hair control? My mind must be screwed up from being here too long, and now it's messing with my dreams. Oh well. It'll probably never be explained to me and I'll never have a reason to mention it again, so let's do just that.

**Author Notes:**

Ariana: La di da, more love potion stuff, yadda, yadda, yadda, I don't care about that at the moment. What the hell was up with that dream sequence?

Uncreative: No points for guess the identity of the unconscious girl and the guy.

Ariana: Well duh, it's obvious. Who the hell was that other girl who actually fought the guy, and how does Josh know her?

Uncreative: He might not. He thinks it's her, but he doesn't know for a fact.

Ariana: Were you lying earlier when you said this story doesn't have anything to do with your previous ones? That dreams sequence doesn't seem like it has anything to do with this story.

Uncreative: It doesn't. But it also has nothing to do with any of my previous stories. It's related to something else entirely.

Ariana: But will that at some point tie into your previous stories?

Uncreative: Tell me the name of the girl who fought the guy in the dream and I'll tell you everything.

Ariana: It's not me is it? It'd be stupid if it was me.

Uncreative: What do you think?

Ariana: So it is me?

Uncreative: ... We're done here.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven: Home is where the heart is**

"So Josh, what'd you do the past week?" Emily asked me. "You and Louise were gone from the academy."

"Remember that mission Louise said the princess assigned us?"

"Yeah, what was that?"

"Basically we had to gather rumors and things like that to give the princess ideas of what to do in order to improve how she does things as a monarch. To do that we wound up working at a bar and got some info there," I tell Emily.

"Oh, so that was you!" Emily says.

"What?"

"My cousin and uncle said they had two temporary employes drop by matching your's and Louise's descriptions, but they forget to mention names. I figured it was you two," Emily tells me.

"Wait, Scarron and Jessica are your relatives?" I ask.

"Well, not by blood obviously, but yeah, they are. Weird, isn't it? It just so happened that you wound up working at where my relatives did, it's like a whole coincidence or something!" Emily says.

"Did you tell either of them to be on the lookout for me and Louise and offer a job just in case?"

"Yep, how'd you know?" She asks while smiling.

"Because I know your methods by now. That's why I told you the mission in the first place even though it was secret, I already knew that you'd know," I tell her. "One thing I don't know, however, is why are you here?"

"Like I said, I've built up quite a few vacation days, and I always wanted to see a duke's house, so with Louise having to drop by, I figured this was the perfect opportunity! How big do you think it is?" Emily asks me.

As Emily just said, me, her, and Louise were on some carriages heading for Louise's family's house. Apparently Louise needed her parent's permission before going to Albion to help the princess' efforts in the war. I should have figured that we'd end up going to Albion the second I said "I'm so glad I never have to go there again!" Next time I think of saying anything like that I am going to slap myself.

Louise was with her sister, Eleonore, in a different carriage then me and Emily. That's probably good because Louise would probably kill me for mentioning anything about the princess' "secret" mission to anyone, regardless of if they knew or not.

"So anything else interesting happen?" Emily asks me.

"Well... Me and Louise went a saw a play together-"

"I knew it! You two are dating!" Emily exclaims.

"It wasn't a date!" I yell at her. "It was a sort of mutual agreement. She wanted to see a play, I wanted to learn a bit about this world's culture in an entertaining manner, so it was a perfect opportunity for both of us. Just like that one time."

"What time?" Emily asks.

"Back home there was this girl I knew named Eve-"

"Old girlfriend?"

"No! Not even close to that!" Why does everyone I mention her to always assume that? "Anyway, me and Eve went to the same school, and she lived on her own because something happened to her parents but I don't know the details. There was this movie out but I can't remember what it was, and both me and Eve wanted to see it, so we went together. No romantic feelings at all ever, just a mutual agreement. Just like what happened with Louise when we saw that play."

"That sounds like an excuse," Emily says, clearly unconvinced.

"Not at all." I say. "My excuses are more along the lines of 'Aliens told me to do it or they'd blow up the planet.'"

"Technically, we are aliens to you, since you're from a different world," Emily points out.

"Fair point, I guess."

Silence for a bit, then:

"Oh! I always kept forgetting to ask!" Emily exclaims. "You say that neither you nor Louise loves the other right?"

Um... Well, "Haven't we had this conversation about 30 times already?"

"I know, I know, but I have a question regarding that," Emily says. "If you don't love her, then why'd you dance with her at that ball a while back?"

"You need to love someone to dance with them at a ball?"

"Not all balls, but that was a romantic ball, and Louise was blushing heavily the entire time," Emily explains. "So what was that all about?"

"First, she technically asked first," I hold up a hand when I see Emily open her mouth. "And it was more along the lines of 'If you really want to you can dance with me.' She didn't ask me, I didn't ask her, it was more of mutual suggestion." I wonder if she bought that.

"Okay, I'll buy her suggesting it, but then why'd you accept her suggestion?" Emily asks.

Didn't think so. Do I want to tell her, though? She'd probably find out eventually. "Well, honestly I probably would have done anything Louise suggested or asked that night."

"Why's that?"

"Well... Um... She had her hair in a ponytail," I say quietly.

"You're kidding, right?"

I shake my head. "I... um... really like ponytails. Best hairstyle for a women by far. It makes any woman look way cuter," I reply, not really caring what I say by this point.

"That's kind of pathetic."

"I'm aware," painfully so. "It's something I'm working on overcoming."

"Any success?"

"Marginally," I tell her.

Eventually, the carriage lurches to a stop, and someone opens the door.

"Are we here?" I ask.

"Yes. Welcome to the Valliere estate."

Finally! The ride was way too long. Now, how big is Louise's house? Freaking huge, that's your answer. It was easily the biggest house I've ever seen. It was around 4 stories tall, and I have no idea how long or wide the house was, due to me sucking when it comes to measuring distance by eye. I want a house like this, why can't I be a duke?

Genius plan step 1: Wait for Louise to grow up.

Genius plan step 2: Make sure Louise inherits the title of duchess

Genius plan step 3: Persuade her to get a giant-ass house like this.

Genius plan step 4: Use my status as her familiar to live in giant-ass house.

Genius plan step 5: ?

Genius plan step 6: Huge profit!

Alternative plan: Somehow make Louise princess, marry her, become king, and live in a castle.

...

I think the first one is more likely, so it's just a matter of biding my time. I will live in a giant house and it will be awesome, mark my words!

Now to meet the Valliere family. Considering how sweet and caring Louise is, I can expect the rest of her family to be just like that, right? I fear for my life.

***Scene Break***

Louise, myself, her two sisters and mother were currently in the dining hall, eating some dinner. Well, those four were, I was standing behind Louise's chair starving. I was only allowed in here at all because I'm her familiar, but that only gets me so far in life, considering I'm a commoner. There has to be some way of becoming a noble despite the fact that I don't have any magic. I want the perks, really badly. That's probably just my stomach talking though, I haven't eaten in hours. Why can't a commoner like me just taste some of the banquet?

Some quick introductions:

Eleonore, Louise's eldest sister, is an older Louise with all the really lovely bits completely removed and replaced with evil and violence. I also think she has devil horns hidden under her blonde hair. I'd need to check to be sure, but it wouldn't surprise me.

Karin, Louise's mom, is frightening, and I can't really tell anything else about her. She's kind of unreadable.

Cattleya, Louise's second eldest sister, is Louise with all the bad bits taken out and replaced with cute and cuddly kittens. Probably literally, considering she's amazing with animals. Of everyone here at this table, minus Louise obviously, I like her the best. Well, except for when she mistook me for being Louise's lover. Needless to say, Louise wasn't pleased but I give her credit, she didn't try to kill me. She just freaked out and yelled that I was her familiar and absolutely nothing more. How disappointing.

With that out of the way, I was waiting for something interesting to happen. None of the four eating were saying anything, they were just eating in silence. Literal silence, the only sound was the knives and forks clattering away. It was unnerving and I wanted to leave, but I also didn't want to be rude and incite someone's wrath.

Eventually Louise broke the silence, a fact I am eternally grateful for.

"Mo-mother," Louise says timidly before stopping.

Karin doesn't respond.

"Mother!" Eleonore yells. "Tell Louise how stupid she's being! She wants to go and support the war campaign in Albion!" _Well, duh. Why else would we be here?_

There's a loud bang as Louise hits the table and stands up. I never knew Louise went to the Ace Attorney school of debating.

"I'm not being stupid!" Louise yells at Eleonore. "How am I stupid for supporting the princess and Tristain's royal family? Explain that to me!"

"You're a girl, aren't you?" _I can personally vouch for Louise's status as a female._ "War is a man's job!" Eleonre yells at Louise. "What business does a little girl have fighting a pointless war?"

Really? That thought process still exists here? Even ignoring the fact that you're her sister, isn't that statement a bit self hateful all things considered?

"That's not an old fashioned way of thinking at all," Louise mutters before point at Eleonore. "We're in a time where men and women have equal positions in everything! How else would you become a chief researcher at the academy? If only boys were given positions like that, how'd you get that job?"

"Do you know what type of place the battlefield is?" _No, but the games are fun._ "It's not a place for women and children like you!" Eleonore yells at Louise.

"I'm 16 years old, I'm not a child anymore!" Louise counters. _Yeah! Because we all knew exactly what we wanted to do at age 16, and enlisted in the military at that time! No, wait. I'm supposed to be on Louise's side for this._ "I should be allowed to fight in the war if I want to! The princess herself trusted me enough to ask for my help!"

"The princess trusts you, the Zero?" Eleonore asks.

And that's where I draw the line.

"That's a bit unnecessarily mean, don't you think?" I ask, prompting everyone to turn to me.

"What are you talking about?" Eleonore asks me.

"You called Louise a zero," I explain. "You know, the name that everyone used to belittle and demean her? What's her own family doing using that name?"

"What? But it-"

"If you say it's a true fact, I will walk over there and slap you across the face right now, I swear to whatever god you worship," I warn before Elenore can say anything.

"What are you-"

"I've said before, I'll say it again. Louise isn't a zero, and her success rate isn't zero. I'm here aren't I? If Louise's success rate was zero, I wouldn't be here as her familiar. Get it? Not only that, but she's substantially improved and can cast non elemental magic with absolute ease and, believe it or not, a 100% success rate. Amazing, isn't it?"

"But she's suggesting-"

"And so what if she wants to go support the war?" I ask. "Didn't you hear her? The princess, who is now actually the queen, personally asked Louise to help. Don't you think that's enough of a reason for her to go help out? Can't you tell Louise has her mind dead set on helping out? I don't think there's a single thing you can say or do to keep her from helping out."

"A commoner understands me better then my family," I hear Louise say under her breath. "If possible, I want you to agree," she says the her entire family, "but I will go support the princess's Albion campaign."

"Anything else anyone wishes to add?" I ask.

"We will talk about Louise when her father arrives tomorrow," Karin says. "Until then, drop the subject. Now."

With that single sentence, everyone in the room, even the servants coming and going, shuts up. No one utters a single word and just goes back to eating. Rightfully so. It's probably because Karin is a very frightening individual, but the way she talks in that steely tone of hers just commands your respect. You feel almost forced to listen to her. Maybe that's just me.

After dinner we all went back to our own rooms. Despite my status as her familiar, Karin would not permit me to sleep in the same room as Louise. I understand she probably doesn't feel safe leaving a boy the same age as her daughter alone in the same room, but it means I'm stuck with a servant's room, and it sucks. Hell, it's probably less then a servant's room, it looks more like a repurposed broom closet that they added a bed to just because they needed a spare room for me to sleep in. At least the bed was nice.

As I lied there in that bed, I began thinking. What was I thinking about? Louise and her family, for the most part. It sucks. I finally manage to admit to myself the one thing I never wanted to admit, then we end up meeting her family, and half of it hates me. It doesn't help that her family's ridiculously powerful, influential, and not very nice. Damn everything. Why'd it have to be Louise? Why couldn't it have been Emily, someone I actually have a chance with? Damn my brain and hormones. Is it hormones that make you fall in love or something else? I always sucked at biology.

As I was busy contemplating how insignificant I am in the grand scheme of things, I heard footsteps, and then someone opened the door. Standing there, in her nightdress and hugging her pillow, was Louise.

"Louise? What are you doing here?" I ask as I sat up.

"Don't get the wrong idea!" She says to me while blushing. "It's just we haven't really had a chance to talk at all today, and familiars feel bad when you don't give them attention!"

Why does Louise sound like one of the clingy girlfriends who text you 168 times in an hour when you forget to turn your phone on and assume you're not talking to them because you're cheating on them with someone infinitely better looking then them? Poor John. He has my sympathy.

"Okay, then come in," I tell her.

Louise walks in and closes the door behind her, before walking up and sitting on the bed right next to me.

"So is your family like that all the time?" I ask Louise.

"No, usually they give me everything I ever wanted," Louise says with the first actually good use of sarcasm I've ever heard from this world. And it came from the person I least expected it to come from. "They've never treated me as anything more then a little girl. No matter what I do they look down on me," Louise says in an almost genuinely sad tone. It wasn't sarcastic, I can tell you that.

"Well, Cattleya seems nice," I offer.

Louise smiles and nods. "Cattleya never got angry or yelled at me. She was always kind and reassuring. She always told me I'd be something great one day."

"Didn't Wardes say that and you didn't trust him?"

"Wardes isn't Cattleya," Louise tells me. "I trust her more then anyone."

"Good to know you trust her more then the familiar you're supposed to trust your life too," I say under my breath.

"Don't get me wrong! I trust you to!" Louise says in a rush. "It's just that Cattleya's my sister, and she's taken care of me almost better then my mother."

"Is your mother really that bad?" I ask.

Louise shakes her head. "She's not bad, but she is strict. Before she retired, my mother was one of the most feared military commanders ever. She believed in discipline above all else. She worked by the rule of steel. If anyone was out of line, she made sure they knew and corrected the problem."

"So I assume she used lots of kind words and treats as positive reinforcement?" I ask.

Louise chuckles. "Yes, that's exactly what she used. Ice cream and sweets for all the good little soldiers. In all seriousness, negative reinforcement doesn't even begin to describe it."

"Did she ever use whips or explosion?" I ask, mostly in jest. "If so, then it might run in the family."

Louise looks down sullenly. "You're mocking me, aren't you?"

"I wasn't mocking you now, though I was kind of kidding," I tell her. "I was kind of pointing out how if she treated her men with negative reinforcement, then it would kind of explain how you run things, it runs in the family."

"I'm sorry for all that," Louise tells me. "It's just... I kind of have to treat you like that. If word got out that I was being nice to a boy who was living with me and accompanied me everywhere, there might be some... unsavory rumors."

"I guess that makes sense," I say. "And it's fine. Well, it's not, but water mages heal everything. After a good session, the pain's nothing more then a memory."

"I do have to thank you though," Louise tells me.

"What for?"

"I picked up a few things from you when it comes to arguing," Louise says with a smile. "I don't know why you always seem to point at whoever you're yelling at, but it kind of came to me naturally."

I'm rather glad. If I'm only able to pass on one thing to leave my mark on this world, I'm glad it's Wright's signature debating technique.

"Was the table banging also something you picked up from me, or was that just a spur of the moment idea?"

"A little of both. It seemed like a good idea at the time," Louise says while rubbing her hands. "It still stings."

"Yeah, you have to hit the table just right," I tell her. "If you hit it too hard, then all you do is thud and you hurt your hands. If you can get just the right angle and force, your hands are spared and you get a nice, resounding bang."

"What's the point of hitting the table while arguing and pointing at whoever your yelling at?" Louise asks me.

"Intimidation. If they're scared of you, they can't voice their argument correctly and you win, and they're too scared to bring up any possible holes in your argument. Of course that's not all that goes into an argument, but it's important."

To keep this pointless conversation short, me and Louise talked like that for a while about nothing important. Eventually we started talking a bit about her family life, what we were going to do about the war, and things like that. For some reason the topic never left Louise. It was always about what Louise's family was like, what her life was like, what she (and I by extension) was going to do during the war. It never turned to my family life or what I thought of anything. By this point I'm used to never voicing my opinion on anything, so it's fine.

Louise seemed to have trouble keeping her eyes open after a while and eventually fell asleep on the bed. Normally I would have given her the bed and slept on the floor in a situation like this, but it was either the bed, or the stone floor. I'm not generous enough to willingly sleep on a stone floor without any type of bedding, so I lied down on the bed right next to Louise.

As soon as I lied down, Louise instantly wrapped herself around my arm and hugged it in her sleep. She seems to have developed a habit of this. I think it started a little after Ragdorian Lake. Maybe the thought of having technically given Wales his second death is giving her nightmares or something and she wants a stuffed animal or something to hug and feel good about herself. After all, there's only one other option that is clearly impossible, so it's clearly the only option.

I couldn't really get to sleep that night, for some reason. I don't know what it is, but something inside me just didn't want to let my brain call it a night. It was annoying. How do you fall asleep again, count sheep? Okay, let's try that. One. Two. Thr- This is boring. Maybe that's the point, to bore yourself to sleep.

Argh, why can't I fall asleep? Louise mumbling right next to me is not helping! Wait, Louise is mumbling? Is she talking in her sleep? I'm much too tired to bother trying to listen in on her dreams, I'll listen in next time. It'd probably be interesting.

Eventually, Louise shuts up, which is good because maybe now I can finally get some sleep. Just close my eyes and pretend the bed isn't slightly shaking. Louise is probably just turning over to get more comfortable.

*chu*

What? What's with that sound? Why does my cheek tingle? Why can I hear Louise sound slightly panicky? Damn my laziness, I just want to sleep. Besides, the thing that sound effect is usually associated with can't be what just happened. That would be slightly perverted on Louise's end. Who does that to someone while they're asleep?

Despite everything, and after what I judge to be a few hours, I was eventually able to get to sleep.

***Scene Break***

When I woke up, Louise wasn't next to me. Not surprising, she'd probably want to leave just in case her mom came in or something. If her parents walked in and saw her sharing a bed with a guy, then I probably wouldn't have woken up at all.

Still, what time was it? How late did I sleep in? Did Louise's dad come back yet? Are we done here? I feel like the longer we stay here, the more danger we're in. Now why could that possibly be? It's not like her mother is an extremely feared army general, and her dad is probably just as bad!

Anyway, judging by the fact that the sun is coming in through the window which is really high up, I'm estimating it's around 11 A.M. Give or take a few minutes.

Option 1: Leave this room and go explore the mansion.

Option 2: Stay here and contemplate my place in the universe some more.

Hmmm...

*knock knock*

Answer the door it is! If given two options, always take the third! If there isn't a third option, make your own.

I opened up the door and standing there was Cattleya. I just noticed, she looks a lot like Louise. I mean, I know they're sisters and everything, but seriously, she looks almost exactly what I picture Louise looking like when she grows up. It's a little scary. It's like Mikuru (small) to Mikuru (big). You can tell they're practically the same person, but they still look different enough that they're almost different people. It's weird, especially considering Cattleya and Louise aren't the same person. At least I don't think so. Come to think of it, would Louise grow up to look like this? Genes are a pretty fickle thing after all.

"Were you just wondering whether or not Louise would look like me when she grew up?"

Oh crap! She's psychic! Don't think anything embarrassing, don't think anything embarrassing-

"You're not psychic, are you?" I ask to be safe.

Cattleya laughs and shakes her head. "No. It was just written all over your face."

Normally I'd be a bit skeptical, after all, most espers don't tell you they're espers, but Cattleya seems nice enough, so I'm willing to believe her.

"I'm sorry if I'm intruding," Cattleya says with a smile. "Was I interrupting anything?"

What could you possibly be interrupting? "No, it's fine."

"I apologize, I don't believe you ever told me your name."

"Me? I'm Joshua Springfield. Call me Josh."

"What a lovely name," Cattleya says with an almost angelic smile. Okay, now I really hope Louise grows up to look like Cattleya, because she is freaking gorgeous.

"I must ask, you don't seem to be from Halkeginia," Cattleya says. "You almost seem like you're an entirely different human."

Well I am an alien, so of course I'd be different. Wait, how did you find out? Stop reading my mind!

"I guess you're wondering how I know," Cattleya says while laughing. "I guess I am a bit sharp, aren't I?"

Try psychic.

"Sorry, but I do have to thank you," Cattleya tells me.

"What for? Have I done anything of any notable worth?" I ask.

"Of course. You've been taking care of Louise, haven't you?"

It sure as hell feels like it at times. Let's count the times I've saved her life:

1. Golem about to crush both of us under it's foot. Well, since I was tied up I was kind of the one who put us in that situation, but Louise is the one who tied me up, so I'm counting it.

2. Wardes about to kill us during the not-wedding at Albion.

of water aimed directly at her.

There's probably more, but those are the only ones that can for the most part be considered unquestionably me saving her life. That's three times Louise would be dead if not for me. I feel like I'm stuck on one long escort mission.

"Well," I begin. "From a technical stand point, I guess I've been taking care of her. I guess I've helped her out with a few situations."

"Again, I thank you for that," Cattleya tells me. "Louise would never have gained her majesty's recognition if you hadn't helped her earn it."

"Okay, that's just giving me too much credit. Louise does most of the work, I just make sure she stays safe while doing it," I say quickly.

Come to think of it, between me and Louise, who does the most work? I took out the golem that one time, but I had a rocket launcher and most likely would have failed if not for that fact. I piloted the zero fighter and took out the dragon knights, but Louise exploded the whole damn armada. I stopped the water tornado that Henrietta and Wales cast, but I'd be dead if Louise hadn't cast dispel. Thinking back, I guess the workload is pretty much 50/50. I'm fine with giving Louise credit though. She'd probably take it anyway, and I don't really like being in the spotlight. Everybody's attention is on you, and you can't afford to screw up that badly. Whereas when you're working in the background, you can screw up all you want and no one will talk shit about you. It's much better for me that way.

"I'm sorry, but I've mostly been stalling," Cattleya says. "I really should get to the real reason I came here."

Oh? Are we in danger already? That's not a shock.

"It's... regrettable, but I should tell you," Cattleya says hesitantly. "Father arrived earlier today."

"Judging by your expression I guess it went wonderfully. We're free to go fight in the war and Louise is getting a pony for her birthday?"

Cattleya chuckles. "Sadly, no. The talk did not go well at all. I've never seen Louise argue for something as much as she did this, but it still didn't work." _Ah crap, am I being a bad influence on Louise when it comes to arguing?_ "As a result, Father is convinced Louise needs to settle down."

"Wait, settle down as in..."

Cattlye nods solemnly. "Yes. Father wants Louise to find a husband and calm her heart."

"Because marrying Louise to someone worked so well last time," I mention.

Cattleya gives wry smile. "I'm sure it will work eventually, she just needs the right person." _What's with that look you're giving me?_ "But father is adamant. He wants Louise to get married now, and has given direct orders to keep her from leaving the estate before then. Since her first engagement turned out to be to a traitor, father feels that this has greatly upset Louise."

"To be fair, if my spouse tried to kill me I'd be a bit upset too, but if anything shouldn't that be a mark against rushing Louise into marriage?" I ask.

"Louise tried to bring that point up, but father didn't listen. After the argument, Louise ran off somewhere, and they're currently looking for her now," Cattleya tells me.

Ah, damn it Louise. Have I taught you nothing? Never run away! Always keep fighting to the bitter end! The only time you should run away is when your girlfriend is convinced you're cheating on her. Running won't save you from her terror, but it will delay your suffering. I feel sorry for John. He got hurt pretty badly in that scramble. That girl didn't stop until we proved him innocent, somehow. I've still yet to figure out how you prove a guy innocent of two timing using a trumpet, three goats, a soccer ball, a bag of dog food and three copies of Ghost Trick on the Nintendo DS, and I was there!

Still, what the hell? Louise doesn't want to get married, her first marriage nearly got her killed, and her dad wants her to get married just because he doesn't want her going to fight in the war she wants to fight in? I can understand not want your kid to go fight in a war, and I can understand trying to force them not to go, but forcing them into marriage? That I don't get. Maybe I'm just an idiot.

"Am I to guess that you aren't happy about that fact?" Cattleya asks me.

"Right on the money," I say. "Wait, I mean... It's because her first marriage nearly got her killed. I don't want her to wind up dead. No, wait... That doesn't help my case, does it?"

"Whatever are you talking about?" Cattleya says while smiling. You can't fool me, I can tell you know what I'm talking about. You know, and you're amused by it. I feel almost like you're mocking me.

"You know, I get the feeling you know what I'm talking about," I tell Cattleya. "Sorry, not happening. For starters there's the whole divide between social status, and I don't happen to be a noble-"

"Do you know the requirements to becoming a noble?" Cattleya interrupts.

"I get the feeling that if I say any of the obvious answers you're going to tell me I'm wrong, so would you kindly tell me?" I ask.

Cattleya smiles and nods. "All you have to do is swear loyalty to the royal family and swear to protect them. Money and territory were given to those who swore by the king in the old days. The ability to cast magic never had anything to do with it."

Hmmm. That's interesting. Very interesting as a matter of fact. So, technically speaking, if the princess willed it I could be a noble, no magic be damned? I like that. I like it a lot. Those perks aren't as out of my reach as I thought!

"Louise is hiding somewhere in the courtyard," Cattleya tells me. "In the courtyard, there's a small pond, with a boat docked. Louise is most likely hiding there, just like she used to when she was small."

As opposed to now when she's slightly less small?

"Okay, then what do I do?" I ask. "Have you prepared some kind of escape route so Louise and I can secretly leave and join the war?"

"Yes, actually." _Holy crap! I was joking! You're serious?_ "After you get Louise, leave the castle grounds. On the main road, there should be a carriage. I've asked your maid friend that you brought along to lead it. She should be waiting on you two now."

"I'll admit, I'm impressed," I say. "I never would have thought you'd done something like this."

"I don't wish to see Louise fight in the war," Cattle says while hanging her head sadly. "I want nothing more then for her to stay here by my side so I can always be sure she's safe. However, she wants nothing more then to go fight in the war and help the royal family in whatever way she can. Shouldn't I support my sister's wishes?" She says as she lifts her head with a smile on her face.

I nod. "Right. I'll make sure Louise is able to come home safely."

Cattleya nods. "I leave my little sister in your care," then she giggles.

"What? Is there something on my face?" I ask. That would be embarrassing if there was something on my face during the entire conversation.

"Here," Cattleya says as she offers me a napkin. "Right cheek. Good bye."

She gives one last smile before turning around and leaving. I use the napkin to wipe my face, and look at it. Sure enough, there was something on my face apparently. There's a sort of red smudge on the napkin, presumably having left it's previous place on my face. What is it? It's vaguely lip shaped, but that would mean... Louise actually... What the hell happened when I went to sleep last night?

***Scene Break***

Okay, courtyard, check. I'm pretty sure I'm in the right courtyard, considering I could see a pond, and there did appear to be a boat in it. Now all I had to do was get Louise, get out of here, and go fight in a war. I swear, this world's going to be the death of me, I just know it.

Pushing those thoughts aside for now, I approached the pond, and walked down the dock until I reached a boat at the end of it. There was a blanket in the boat, and someone did appear to be hiding under it. How is it that no one has ever found Louise here before? It's such an obvious place, and she's not even hidden that well. My faith in this estate's guards has dropped significantly.

Still, no time to complain. I step into the boat, and pull off the blanket, revealing Louise lying down. Instead of her usual academy uniform, Louise was wearing a sort of green dress. It looked pretty good, but I prefer the uniform, it's something I'm more comfortable with.

"Louise, Cattleya was devious enough to come up with an escape route for us so we can get out of here and go fight in a war, wanna come?" I ask her.

"Josh?" She asks as she moves her head slightly to look at me.

"Yeah, now I'll ask again. Want to go fight in a war?" Because I sure don't.

"It's fine, I don't want to go anymore," Louise says.

Well that's good for me because I don't like the idea of putting myself in a position to be killed but:

"Weren't you the one who insisted on coming here in the first place to get the permission to fight in the war?"

"It's fine," Louise says. "My family didn't give me the permission, so I can't go."

"You're letting that stop you? What happened to the Louise who would do whatever she wanted because she wanted people to recognize how awesome a person she was and how much she gets done? Like when you tried to stop Fouquet. What happened to the Louise that volunteered to get that done?"

"It's fine." One thing I've learned is that when someone says it's fine any more then one time, it's not fine. "Besides, no one would recognize my efforts anyway. Who would pay attention to a little girl like me? A zero."

I suddenly felt an urge to slap Louise right then. I'm really starting to hate the word zero. Which sucks, because he was always my favorite over X. It's no wonder he got his own series, and Capcom silently killed X off while promoting Zero to awesome status. He and Tron Bonne, freaking Tron Bonne, even though she is one of my favorite video game characters and I mean no disrespect, got into MvC3 over him for crying out loud! But I digress.

"Did you really just say that?" I ask. "Is that honestly something you believe?"

Louise nods, but she still doesn't raise her head and look at me.

"You'd honestly believe something that's completely untrue?" I ask.

"What, me not being a zero?" Louise asks. "Even if it's true, we can't tell my family that. You honestly think we could tell them a royal secret like the fact that my element is void? That of the founder Brimir? They wouldn't believe me."

"While you aren't a zero in any sense of the word, I was talking about you not being recognized," I correct. "Even if nobody else on earth believes you, or notices what you do, I would. I know everything you've done for this place," mostly because I was forced to tag along, but let's not bring that up, this is the time to say things to make Louise feel better!

I think Louise blushes, but she's still lying on the deck of the boat not moving, so I can't really tell what her emotion is.

"Don't lie," Louise tells me.

"Do I sound like I'm lying?" I ask.

"Of course. What reason do you have to want me to go to war?" Louise asks. "Do you hate me enough that you want me to go fight in the war and die, so your contract will expire and you can go home?"

"What on any planet in the universe gave you that ridiculously STUPID idea?" I ask as I yell at her.

"Are you calling me stupid?" Louise asks as she finally sits up and glares at me.

"For once, I am," I respond. "You honestly think I hate you that much? I don't hate you at all!" It goes quite beyond not hating you, actually.

"Tell me then, why do you want to go fight in the war?" Louise asks me. "Why are you trying so hard to convince me to leave, disregard my parents instructions, and fight a potentially deadly war? Are you trying to impress the princess by supporting her in the war?"

"You're still on that?" I ask. "It was one time, and she's the one who kissed me! We had to do that to throw off the guards! You think it was my idea? I do NOT like Henrietta that way! At all!"

"Then what was your reasoning for the way your acting right now?" Louise asks me angrily. "Why are you so insistent I run away from home to go fight?"

This argument is going on for far too long, with nothing being achieved. Time to introduce my ace in the hole and finish this off quickly. Initiate warm up.

"I want to go fight in the war because you want to fight in the war," I tell Louise. "You came here with the specific intention of getting your parents to agree to let you go fight, and I'm trying to help you accomplish that goal."

"And why do you care so much about what I want?" Louise asks me. "Your answer better be smarter then 'because I'm you're familiar.'"

Trust me, it is. You'll get a kick out of this. This'll be fun. Deploying ace in 3, 2, 1:

"I care about what you want because I love you."

Joshua used confession on Louise.

Critical hit!

It's super effective!

Louise is now confused!

"Wh-what?" Louise asks me, her face as red as a strawberry.

"Sorry, did I not speak clearly enough?" I ask. "I'll say it again. I-"

Louise covers my mouth with her hands. "N-no! Don't say it again! I'm already too confused as to what to think! You're not serious are you?"

Rather unfortunately, I am serious. It's weird. With all the whippings, explosions, and the occasional insult, how the hell did I manage to fall in love with Louise? Maybe I'm a masochist. Then again, when Louise switches over to deredere, it's easily the most lovable thing I've ever seen. That's the problem with a tsundere, the tsun part is really painful and annoying, often at the same time, but the moments when they actually show something resembling loving you, it makes all the pain worth it. Sadly.

"Would you prefer it if I wasn't being serious?" I ask Louise. "If you want, I can lie and say I was joking. Would you prefer that, or should we go now? Cattleya set up a carriage for us to get out of here."

Louise thinks for a second, then stands up. "I'm better now. Let's go before my parents find out and ruin the moment."

"Much better," I say as I smile and stand up.

We get out of the boat, and start heading for them main road. The walk was mostly silent. There's something I want to ask Louise our of sheer curiosity, but I'm not entirely sure I should ask. You know what, screw it, I'm asking.

"Hey Louise."

"Yes Josh?"

"Your dad said he wanted you to get married and calm your heart or whatever, right?"

"Ye-yes? Wh-what about i-it?"

What's with that way of talking? Are you nervous or something? I don't get it. I understand being slightly nervous about being confessed too, but that was a few minutes ago, you can't still be all flustered from that, are you?

"I was just wondering, was your dad going to force you to marry someone, or did he learn his lesson and decided to let you actually choose who you were going to marry? It's something that's been bugging me and I wanted to ask."

I think I hear Louise let loose a sigh and mutter something along the lines of "Disappointing," but I have no idea what it could be for. What, did something I say lift a huge pressure off you or something? Why else would you be sighing?

"Well... He didn't say, but I think he would have let me choose someone this time," Louise responds.

"Oh, so he does learn from mistakes," I casually throw in. "Anyone you've got your eye on?"

"Wha-what?!" Louise asks me, her facing blushing so red that it should probably set a world record. I wish I had my phone so I could take a picture.

"I was asking if you had someone you liked, so that when your dad forced you to marry you'd at least be with someone you liked."

"N-no! Not at all! There's no one I like!" Louise yells at me while whirling her arms around.

Which, of course, means she likes someone. Damn. Ah well, not like I ever had much of a chance in the first place. I wonder who it is. It better not be Guiche. He's undeserving of the role of "center of a harem." Considering I'm a video game protagonist, I think I'm more suited for that position. Actually, a harem might be a terrible idea for me. If I actually had one, and if Louise was in it, she'd probably get all jealous and blow everyone up. Hmmmm... I'd need to think this one through. Silence bothers me though, so lets keep the conversation with Louise rolling.

"So, if you don't like anyone in that way-"

"Of course not!" Louise says, still blushing.

"Right. But if you don't like anyone, what were you going to do about the marriage your father so desperately wants?"

Louise is quiet for a minute. "I guess..." Her voice trails off.

"You guess... what?" I ask.

"If worst comes to worst and their's no one else present, I guess you'd suffice," Louise says, while not looking at me.

... I'm sorry, what?

"Excuse me?"

"D-don't misunderstand me!" Louise hurriedly adds. "If you are forced to be married, wouldn't it at least be beneficial to be married to someone who loves you?"

Wait, I know this behavior. It's practically a textbook example of Tsundere denial! Holy crap, is Louise in love with me? If that's true, that actually kind of blows my mind. I mean I noticed a few hints here and there but the other half of the time... No, I'll wait for confirmation before even beginning to feel giddy at the potentially incorrect fact. If it turns out I was wrong, then there's going to be a lot of awkward moments in the near future.

Eventually, me and Louise do make it to the carriage, and we see Emily sitting in the front, waving at us.

"Hiya!" She yells at us. "Either of you know how to drive this thing?"

"Wait, you don't?" All that knowledge of everything, and she doesn't know how to make two horses move?

"I ride horses, I don't know how to drive a carriage," Emily says.

"I think I could probably do it," I mention. It's days like this I seriously regret not spending any time with John Marston.

"Well give it a shot," Emily says while moving over so I can take the driver's seat. "Louise, you can sit in the passenger seat and let us chauffeur you around."

Chauffeurs exist in this world? That surprises me. Well, it's not important. We should probably get out of here. Who knows how much longer until Louise's parents find out she ran off?

I sit in the driver's seat and start driving the carriage, while Emily sits next to me, and Louise sits in the actual carriage part.

"So, anything interesting happen during your stay here?" Emily asks as we start driving.

Should I tell her? Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if she already knows, so might as well.

"Was that betting pool the staff set up for who I get as a girlfriend, or who I actually fall in love with?" I ask.

"Preferably the former, but they'd accept the latter, why do you ask?" Emily asks, trying to conceal the fact that she already knows.

"Go collect your winning pool, Louise won," I told her.

Slight hesitation. "I knew it! I totally called it! Oh, Lisa's totally going to lose it when she finds out I beat her!"

"What was with that?"

"What? My joy at winning? Isn't that normal?" Emily asks.

"No, you hesitated at first. What's with that?"

"I guess it just didn't click with me at first," Emily says while shrugging.

Wait a minute. I just noticed something.

"Emily, did you do your hair differently? I thought you were a strictly twin tails person?"

Emily smiles and pats her hair, now tied in a rather adorable ponytail.

"I just figured it would be nice for a change of pace. I mean, us girls can't keep the same hair style all the time, can we? How's it look?"

Adorable. It's increased Emily's charm by around 36%.

"That's a pretty specific number," Emily points out.

I have a mathematic formula for things like this. It allows a perfect measurement of how much cuter a girl is made by wearing her hair in a ponytail.

"So you're saying I'm cuter then I was last time you saw me?"

"Well, technically yes, but I can only says so much. I don't want Louise exploding me," I point out.

Wait, is it just my imagination, or did Emily just start blushing when I admitted to thinking she's reasonably cute with a ponytail? And why isn't she looking at me anymore? Oh crap, don't tell me... I was kidding about being a good candidate for "center of harem!" I mean seriously, what is so good about me that I've got three girls with an attraction to me? There's Kirche, Louise, who I kind of doubt is actually in love with me but I'd need to confirm that, and now Emily? Who's next, Tabitha? Yeah, that'll be the day.

I'm done for the day. I don't want to think about this anymore. Can we just hurry up and go fight a war? It'll get my mind off this terrible train of thought.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight: War never changes**

This sucks. Can we go back to having to deal with my potential harem that I don't feel I deserve at all? It'll take my mind off of how horridly boring and time consuming being the trump card in a war is. Literally, that's what they called Louise, a trump card. We exist solely to give us an advantage. I knew that's what we were going to be doing anyway, but that doesn't make it any less annoying.

It had been about a month and a half since we arrived in Albion, which in turn was about a week after we left Louise's house. In that time, me and Louise have been on around 121 different missions for the Tristain army, usually involving using my zero fighter to transport Louise somewhere so she can use her voidness to blow something up. But not always. See, Louise actually picked up a new spell that allows her to make illusion copies of something, so we would sometimes use those to trick the Albion army into retreating. Not like it does any permanent good. I like to think of myself as an optimist, but this war's turning me into a pessimist.

Here's a bit of a sample as to how the current conversation with the generals is going.

"We will go to this part, then use the experimental magic to drive those people towards this place so we can ambush them with our army."

By the way, since we couldn't go around blabbing that Louise is a master of void, Louise, Emily and myself worked together to construct the lie that Louise is being used to test some experimental spells that the royal family is working on. I didn't think it was that good, but Emily assured us it would work, and it did. Kind of amazing.

"Do you think you guys can actually manage to tone down the usage of Master Louise?" I ask the generals present. "I'm all for helping out, but you seem to be forgetting that mages only have so much willpower with which to cast spells. We can't keep spamming Louise like this."

"I don't see what you point is," one of the generals asks me. "Willpower recharges while sleeping, does it not? All she needs is a good night's rest, and she'll be fine."

"The problem is keeping the nights open for rest," I say while I point at Louise, who has fallen asleep in her chair. "You seem to have forgotten that you've sent us on more then a few nighttime missions. Nighttime missions mean no sleep. No sleep means no willpower. No willpower means no experimental spells for you. Didn't you call us a trump card? Isn't the point of a trump card to use it as sparingly as possible, and only in emergencies?"

"Fine. We'll give you a day off," one of the generals tells me. "Tomorrow we'll most likely have another mission for you, so make sure she gets some rest."

"Thank you. Anyone know how to get her out of here without waking her up?"

All the generals then walked out of the tent, leaving me alone with a sleeping Louise. Thank you for nothing. Damn everything, I guess I better wake Louise up.

"Hey, Louise. Wake up," I say as I gently nudge her.

"No, you can't do that," I hear Louise mutter.

"What? What are you talking about?"

"What if someone hears us?" She mutters again.

Wait, is she dreaming? Oh, this should be good. I missed her last dream chat, and I promised myself I'd take the next opportunity, so why not? I'll probably hate myself for it later, but I decided to listen for a bit.

"Wh-what? Of course not! M-maybe a l-little. Ye-yes."

Even in her sleep Louise manages to keep up the tsundere act. That's pretty impressive, all things considered. 20 bucks says she was pissed off at me. It honestly wouldn't surprise me. I am surprised at how coherent she is when she talks in her sleep. Does everyone talk in full, understandable sentences when they dream?

"St-stop it Josh!" She says as she starts wiggling in her seat.

See? I was right. Now where and from whom do I collect my winnings?

"I d-don't like it at ahh-" Whatever Louise was saying becomes drowned out as she lets out a moan.

Um... What the hell am I doing to her in that dream of hers? I'm worried of what I'd find out if I were to dip into her subconscious. I honestly become frightened by the mere thought of it.

"Um... O-okay, I'll do that."

Whoa, is she honestly having some kind of-

"W-wear that! You can't be serious!"

Okay, what the hell? I don't know what Louise is thinking, but now I'm starting to get worried. Is she picturing me trying to force an outfit on her before I go for the home run? Louise, my hobbies don't extend that far. With some exceptions, I don't have a cosplay fetish at all.

"Are you sure? F-fine, I'll wear it. C-could you turn around?"

Oh crap, please don't let her say what I think she's going to say.

"W-what! You per-perverted dog! Wh-who's a kitten?"

Damn everything. Louise, if I am indeed whoever you mentioned in your dream and you're not mentioning someone else named Josh, I'm not that perverted. I think. I hope I'm not that perverted. And what's this about a kitten? I'd ask for an explanation, but I'm too worried about those answers.

"B-back then was different. You were a familiar."

Well, unless she's talking about Verdandi, I think it's safe to assume she's talking about me. In which case, what's that supposed to mean? I'm still a familiar. What's she talking about? Maybe listening in on her dreaming was a bad idea, I'm only getting half the conversation. It's an admittedly entertaining half, but still.

I really should wake her up. But part of me doesn't want to. This is far too entertaining. And what better way to find out how people actually think then by listening to their subconscious? I just hope this doesn't get any weirder, or scientific curiosity goes flying out the window and I wake Louise up.

"I don't want to. Th-they're small," Louise mutters.

They're small? What's "they?" If she's talking about her breasts, I guess they are kind of small. Tabitha's the only one smaller then her in that regard, and Kirche has watermelons duct-taped to her chest. Do you think I hate you because your breasts are small? The only other girl I've spent an amount of time with even close to the amount of time I'm with you is Emily, and her breasts are only slightly larger then yours. Louise is maybe an A cup, and Emily's probably a B cup. I don't care though, breasts are breasts, who cares about the size?

...

Wow, I really am a pervert.

"D-don't lie. You hate them, don't you?"

By this point I'm starting to wonder why I'm still listening. This is starting to get to weird for my tastes. Um... Willpower recharges with sleep, right? More sleep, more spells cast. Besides, it's not like I have anything better to do.

"R-really?" Louise asks the air surrounding her. "Y-you're not lying?"

I guess I wasn't lying in her dream, because real world Louise seems to hesitantly smile.

"O-okay then. Promise you won't do anything?"

Real world Louise then moves one of her hands to the collar of shirt and starts tugging on it, tugging loose around three buttons on her shirt, revealing the closest Louise will ever get to cleavage. Considering she just popped off another few buttons and I could see her camisole quite clearly, and she doesn't appear to care or notice, I think we've had about enough.

"Hey Louise, wake up," I say as I flick her forehead, causing her to jolt awake and nearly fall off her chair.

"Wh-what?" Louise asks as she looks around. She sees me and her face lights up around three different shades of red. "Josh! What are you doing? I was sleeping! What'd you wake me up for? I happened to like the dream I was having!"

"Clearly. Normally when I see people having good dreams, I let them sleep. I kind of had to make an exception in your case, considering what you were just about to do."

Louise looks confused for a minute, then she seems to notice where her hand is, and how many buttons she undid. Her face gains another 5 shades of red, and she slaps me so hard that I do a complete 180 and fall face down on the floor. You know, considering Louise's face seems to always get really red when she's embarrassed, I figure I'll just start measuring how embarrassed she is by the number of shades of red her face is.

"Ow," I mutter as I get back up.

"You didn't hear anything, did you?" Louise asks me. I notice her shirt's completely buttoned up again. Good, I was worried Louise would turn into Kirche and think that was a good look to walk around town with.

"Nope. Nothing at all." If I tell her I heard any of what she said, I can assume my heart will stop beating about three seconds afterwards. "I take it I should never want to ask for details?"

"Of course not!" Louise yells at me. "A maiden's dreams are her personal matter! Even if it did involve you, it is none of your business!"

Did Louise just confess that her dream was about me? I don't know what to think about that. That worries me, and makes me happy. It means she's at least interested in me if she's having those kinds of dreams. It's probably not love, but sometimes you have to take what you can get. Beggars can't be choosers, right? Why does it feel so good to know that someone you love likes you back?

"I was in your dream?" I ask Louise, playing dumb to the fact that I already knew that. Let's just tease Louise a bit, see how she reacts. "If that's true, then that means-"

"No! I don't love you!" Louise yells at me.

I've gotten to the point where I'm around 86% sure the Louise actually does love me. It's a statistic I'd love to raise to 100%, but I doubt Louise would confess to me unless we were both about to die, and even then I doubt she'd say anything. She seems to be one of those kinds of people.

"I didn't say that. I was going to point out how it's kind of funny that your familiar manages to work his way into your dreams."

Louise somehow manages to add another shade of red to her face. We're up to, what, 9 shades of red? I think Louise's real magical ability is to have an unlimited number of different shades of red color her face when she's embarrassed. It's actually kind of cute.

"Shut up stupid familiar," Louise says while refusing to look at me. "So what did the generals say our next mission is?"

"Take a day off. They'll have something for us tomorrow."

Louise seems to perk up at that. "Really? They're giving us the day off? No missions or assignments today?"

"None. None at all. Anything you want to do to kill time?"

"Sleep," Louise tells me with a yawn. "I had no idea magic could be this exhausting."

"You sure that's the only reason?"

In response, Louise glares at me. It was a frightening glare. Her eyes appeared to be boring into the very confines of my soul, ripping it from my body before drilling into the center of this very planet and trapping my soul in hell to burn forever. It was a glare that could have made Cthulhu quiver and fear and go mad had he gazed upon the glare for more then three seconds.

It was one of those kinds of glares.

"Of course that's the only reason I want to sleep. What other reason could there be?" Louise asks me sternly, daring me to question her.

"Well-"

"Say anything, and I will teach you the true meaning of pain," Louise says angrily.

I shut my mouth.

"Good boy," Louise says with a smile.

We turn and walk towards the exit of the tent, only for someone to walk in.

"Ah, I had hoped to catch you two."

He was maybe slightly shorter then me, which still put him at about a head taller then Louise. He had blondish hair, and his eyes were different colors. Blue and brown. Weird.

"And who might you be?" I ask blondie.

"My apologies. I am a priest from Romalia. My name is Julio Cesar. Having a human as a familiar is rather rare-"

Let me pause for a minute. I FREAKING GET IT! HUMANS AREN'T SUMMONED AS FAMILIARS! STOP MENTIONING IT EVERY SINGLE TIME I MEET SOMEONE NEW! Whew. Anywho-

"And I couldn't help myself," Julio continues, oblivious to my ramblings. "I had to meet this strange phenomenon."

... I think I hate you. I don't even know why, I just do. In fact, the more words you speak the more I want to punch you in the face.

"Ah! And you must be Ms. Valliere," Julio says while turning to Louise. "It appears the rumors are true," _She's a lesbian? That's what most of the commoners here seem to be saying behind her back for some reason._ "You are indeed almost criminally beautiful," He says as he takes her hand and kisses it.

Urge to punch Julio in his smug face rising beyond recommended levels. At least Louise will take care of that for me. Louise won't take something like that lying down! Right Louise?

"I'd appreciate it if you didn't do that," Louise says with a slight blush on her face.

... Right Louise?

"Nice job with the whole priestly act thing," I throw in to keep this moment from getting any worse then it possibly could have normally.

"Since I'm helping Tristain in the war, the pope gave me a reprieve from my duties as a priest."

And here I thought the pope would have given you a stupid hat and told you to not go fight because it's evil and wrong.

"So you're allowed to do not preistly things just because you're on vacation and helping in a war? Sounds about right."

"My apologies," _I don't want apologies, I want to punch you in the face._ "I had forgotten my priesthood and reacted reflexively when faced with such a lovely lady."

... I'd be very happy if you would leave. Now, preferably. Before you say anything else to make me want to punch you even more, you goddamn flirt.

Thankfully Julio seemed to sense the killing intent I was trying to muster, because he left with barely another word. As soon as he left, I suddenly felt all my hatred disappear. Huh. Weird. Wait, couldn't I have at least used Heightened Awareness to check and make sure he was on our side? Well, too late now. I'm sure he's fine.

Louise and I walk out of the tent, and head back to the room we've rented for the duration of our stay here.

"What's the matter?" Louise asks me as we head back to the hotel. "You seem kind of down."

"Do I? I don't feel it."

"Well you definitely look it," Louise points out. "What, are you jealous of that flirty priest?"

"No. What's there to be jealous about at all?"

Louise smiles. "Right. After all, he's not my type anyway."

"May I ask what is your type then?"

"Why would you want to know?" Louise asks in a teasing manner. "What benefit could possibly come from that knowledge?"

"I feel like you're mocking me."

"I'm not mocking you at all!" Louise says in a faux-defensive tone. "What's there to mock?"

"The fact that I managed to somehow fall in love with you. I feel like that fact amuses you and you mock me for it. To me, it kind of comes across as rejection. Is that what it is?"

Louise stops walking for a minute, then puts a hand to her chin, like she's deep in thought.

After a minute:

"No."

"No, what?"

"Your question. The answer's no," Louise tells me.

"So I'm not rejected?"

"Nope. But it's not accepted either. I need to think about it a bit more," Louise says with a happy tone.

Is it just me or is Louise acting a bit different then usual? She seems pretty cheerful. I don't get it. Still, I think Louise has the right idea. Sleep now, put life in danger for the 122nd time tomorrow.

***Scene Break***

*Whistle* I love flying the zero fighter. Flying a plane is surprisingly easy, and it really allows for a nice chance to just think about nothing in particular. It's a very zen experience. It'd be more peaceful if I was flying for a reason other then war, but you take what you can get, right?

"Okay, so fly over to that town and let you cast illusion, right Louise?" I ask to confirm the mission.

"Right. That should be it."

"And why are these dragon following us?"

"They're our bodyguards," Louise explains. "They are to protect us should the enemy try and bring us down before we reach town."

"Are we really important enough to warrant body guards to protect us?"

"Of course! Where would our army be without the void? It's proven an invaluable asset!"

"You sound just like those generals," I remark.

"And what's wrong with that? The void is Tristain's advantage! We have something Albion doesn't, so shouldn't we use it?" Louise asks me.

Ah, it's nice hearing Louise be all upset at me again. It seems much more natural.

"I'm just saying, is it really okay to spam void like this? Someone's bound to catch on eventually, and besides, remember that little thing the water spirit told us they have? remember the Ring of Andvarri? I can see that giving them a slight advantage." Damn, I still need to get that for the water spirit. Maybe once this war's done I can make a move on that.

"The water spirit's ring won't help them in a war!" Louise yells at me.

"Armies of unkillable zombies are kind of useless after all."

"My void counteracts that! You forgot that already you idiot?"

It's so nice having Louise back to her normal personality. I like this Louise way better then the Louise that appears to be a bit of a tease. No, wait. That's not it. The Louise that's slightly more mischievous? No, not right either. Anyway, her being a type A Tsundere comforts me way more then her being type B Tsundere. I'm more familiar with it and it seems way more natural for her. That and I think I have a bit of a thing for Tsunderes, so yay for me.

"What are you thinking about?" Louise asks. "Pay attention to where you're flying."

"Sure thing Master."

It's only another five minutes or so until we reach our destination, this mission will all be over soon.

*BOOM*

"Holy hell, what was that?"

"We've been spotted!" Louise informs me. "Albion dragons are attacking us!"

I take a look around and notice that there are roughly three dragons chasing after us. Perfect! We have three dragon knights of our own. This'll be fun.

"Should I try to do something or leave everything up to our bodyguards?"

"At least make an attempt to make it to the town!" Louise yells at me. "Just focus on flying to the town, the dragon knights will take care of those following us!"

Can do. Ignoring everything around me is a specialty of mine. Next stop: Nameless town so we can trick the Albion army into retreating. Ignore everything.

"Shit! Fireball!" I notice as I press Z twice to roll out of the way of the fireball that was just shot out at us.

"Watch your flying!" Louise yells at me as she tries to reorient herself after the roll.

"Sorry. Evasive maneuvers are always annoying in first person."

"Just watch it!" Louise yells. "We have to accomplish this mission!"

Maybe I'd do better if you quit yelling at me! Okay, keep ignoring everything, keep ignoring everything. Wait, shit! Is that dragon trying to go kamikaze on us?

"Is that dragon trying to collide with us?" Derflinger asks.

"I think so. Must be an 'I am taking you down with me' mentality he has," I reply nervously.

I get ready to turn the zero fighter out of the way, but I don't need to. Before my eyes, one of our dragon knight bodyguards does his own kamikaze, and runs into the dragon going to attack us. The two dragons collide, and both riders are knocked off and plummet towards the ground, with their dragons following suit.

"H-hey! Did he just do a heroic sacrifice?" I ask in a panic.

"No time to worry! Keep piloting!" Louise tells me.

"Wait, no! We don't even know him! Why'd he do that?"

"That's how important the mission is!" Louise tells me.

"That's stupid!"

Before Louise responds, the other two dragon knights with us perform similar moves, and take out the enemy dragons, at the cost of themselves.

"Wait, why are they doing that!" I ask. "There's no reason for that!"

"They're making sure those dragons are completely incapable of taking us down," Louise tells me.

"That warrants a suicide maneuver? It's unnecessary! We'd have been fine!"

"Now we are! There's no one else after us, see?" Louise says as she motions to the now empty skies around us. "We're in the clear! The mission is now a success."

"And all it took was the lives of three people we didn't even know," I say with a sigh.

"Josh, are you okay?" Louise asks.

"What? I'm fine, what's with that question?"

"You seem upset. Was it the fact that those dragon knights sacrificed themselves to protect us?"

"What do you think? I didn't even know them, I never talked to them, never met them, and they get themselves killed to protect us. Just... Just cast your spell or whatever, I want to get out of here."

And so Louise did, and we were able to accomplish the mission.

***Scene Break***

Argh... I feel like shit. I honestly feel like shit. Normally I'd link this back to the fact that I just saw three people die so me and Louise could live a few days ago, but I didn't know them at all. I didn't know their names, I never met or talked to them, so it shouldn't be getting me down like this. So then why is it?

What's the term for people doing what I'm doing? Wangsting? God, I hope I haven't devolved into that. I have to at least keep some of my own credibility. Okay. Don't complain. Cheer up. No point in mourning every single death in a war, right?

...

Screw it, I'm going out and getting a beer. Where's the bar around here? I think there was a bar of some kind in town. Okay, so I get out of this room, leave the hotel, I think it was around 3 blocks down and then a right. Or something like that. Either way, I opened the door to mine and Louise's room and took one step out.

"Josh?"

"Yes, Louise?"

"Where are you going?"

"Out for a walk. You want to come?"

Louise thinks for a bit. "No, I'll be fine here."

"Okay, see you later," I say as I exit the room.

Why did something about Louise's tone imply that she's scheming something? The fact that Louise could scheme anything worries me greatly. What plan could Louise have the benefits her? I let my thoughts wander... then I walk headfirst into the end of the hallway. Note to self: Pay attention when walking. Also walls hurt when you walk into them. I hope no one saw that.

Eventually I do manage to stumble across a bar of some kind, and I walk in. Goddamn, it's busy in here. I order a glass of the weakest alcoholic beverage they've got, and sit at a table by my lonesome, drinking away my sorrows. Or I would, if I bothered to drink. I still couldn't bring myself to do much more then look at the beer in front of me. All I need to do is lift the glass, put it too my lips and drink. But after what happened last time I drank alcohol... *shudder* Let's not go into that.

"Josh?"

Company! Yes! Something to take my mind off of the fact that I won't drink this! Who is it?

"Emily? What are you doing here?"

By the way, Emily was wearing casual wear. Just a nice black dress with short sleeves and a chest pocket. And she still has her hair in a criminally adorable ponytail. Damn it.

"Me, Jessica and Scarron set up a sort of mini-charming fairy inn here to help out in the war effort," Emily tells me. "I didn't have to come, but I wanted to help out my relatives." My mind briefly projects the image of Emily wearing that inn uniform, then just as quickly rejects it. It's best to not picture things like that in public.

"Is that so?" I stupidly ask.

"Yeah. I'd ask why you're here, but it's pretty obvious that you're helping out Louise with the war effort. A better question is, why are you here at a bar, and where's Louise?" Emily asks.

"Louise is back at the room... I dunno, sleeping, I guess. I'm here to attempt to drink this beverage in front of me."

"I thought you didn't drink?"

"I don't. It's a special occasion."

"And what might that be?" Emily asks in a tone that actually seems to show that she doesn't know why I'm here. That's a nice change of pace.

"Me and Louise went on a mission... Two days ago, was it? We got assigned three dragon knights as bodyguards. Now, I didn't know them. I never met them, never talked to them, I didn't even ever see them face to face, and I doubt Louise did either. Despite this, all three of them still sacrificed themselves to stop the opposing force from taking down Louise and I."

"Sorry if it sounds a bit dickish, but why does that upset you?" Emily asks me. "Like you said, you never met them face to face, so why are you so upset?"

"I think that's why I'm upset. I didn't know them, why'd they go and get themselves killed for us? I don't get it."

At that, I finally manage to pick up the glass and drink a solid half of it. Alcohol tastes terrible.

"Well... How's Louise taking it?" Emily asks.

"I dunno. She... Why are you spinning?"

"Excuse me?"

"What'd you do?"

"You're that drunk already?" Emily asks.

"Please, I only had like one sip."

"You just held up four fingers."

"Oh yeah."

Emily sighs, and pulls out what looks like a notebook from her dress pocket. She flips a few pages and looks at a page.

"I miss those," I mention.

"Excuse me?"

"I miss notebook computers. Different from notebooks, but the same, you know? You write stuff in them, they remind you about stuff and go off when you set the alarm at the right time."

"Notebooks don't have alarms."

"Really? Do they still remind you about dates?"

"Yeah." Then Emily sighs. "Just another few days."

"What's in a few days?"

"That depends on your capacity to remember things I tell you when you're drunk," Emily tells me.

"I dunno. Am I drunk?"

"Very, apparently. You have the lowest tolerance I've ever seen. One sec, I'm going to slap you."

"Wha-"

*PAK*

"Ow! What was that for?"

"Less drunk now?" Emily asks me.

"I definitely feel saner."

"Good. I hate talking to drunk people," Emily notes.

"So, what happens in a week?"

"You remember that?"

"It was a topic of conversation we started roughly 30 seconds ago, and I only drank half a cup of the weakest alcoholic beverage they have here. I was saner then I appeared."

Emily hesitates, then sighs again. I don't think I've ever seen her sigh this much.

"What would you do if you knew about something really dangerous, something you really shouldn't know, but it doesn't concern you in any way and there's nothing you can do about it?" She asks me.

"What are you talking about? Does this have anything to do with that information network you claim to have?" I ask.

"Look, I do have a way to get knowledge about stuff here. Yes, it involve sources and people. Yes, this is something about that. I... Look, I can't talk about it. I don't really know how to explain properly. I guess the base point is that I came across some info I don't like."

"That info being?"

"Hey waiter! Can I have what this guy ordered?" Emily asks the waiter, who nods and goes off to get her a drink. "Anyway, you know that advent festival that's scheduled to start soon, and how there's supposed to be a ceasefire called?" Emily asks.

"Yeah, and?"

"Apparently, and I don't know if this is true or not," _I think you do._ "But apparently, Albion isn't going to honor that. Last day of the festival, count on an invasion force."

After saying that, Emily looks away and stares at a spot on the wall and spaces out. What's she thinking about?

"Well, if you know this and can prove it, why don't you-" I stop when I see Emily shaking her head slowly.

"That's just it. I don't have the proof. I don't have a written document saying, 'oh, these guys are sending 70,000 troops over here at this time at the end of the festival.' All I have is the word of friend that an invasion force is coming. Size and type unknown. Thank you," She tells the waiter who just brought her a drink. She drinks about three fourths of it and glares at me.

"You got drunk on this stuff? You can give this to kids and they'll be just as sober as before!" She tells me.

"Shut up. Anyway, if you can't provide any proof, then how can you be sure that the info is correct?"

"I just can. It's not something I could really explain, I just know it's true. Please, don't ask," Emily tells me.

"Okay, if you say so."

Hmm... How long have I been out here? How late is it? I should probably go back to Louise's room and sleep or something.

"Well, nice seeing you again Emily, but I think I should probably go now."

"Right. I understand," Emily says as she downs the rest of her drink. I do the same and drink the remaining half of my drink.

As soon as I do, Emily flicks my forehead.

"There," Emily says. "Much less painful then being slapped. Before you go, I was asked to give you a message."

"From who?"

"Guy named Rene. Ran into him yesterday and mentioned I know you and he asked me to pass a message on," Emily explains.

"And that message is?" And who the hell's Rene? Isn't that a girl's name?

"If I remember correctly, he said something along the lines of 'Tell that kid and girl we saved that there's no hard feelings and to finish up the war before out month long vacation's up.' Or something like that."

"Wait... Are you saying-"

"Yeah, they're fine. Gotta love that elven magic."

"Elves?" Legolass?

"They say it was a fairy, but the description is much closer to an elf," Emiri clarifies.

Interesting. Very interesting. But considering the fact that I want to name the table I'm sitting at Steve and tell it all about my time in the antarctic military, I'd say I'm far too gone to really care at the moment. Maybe my head'll clear up on the walk back to Louise's room.

Walking while drunk sucks. I walked into the same pole twice in a row. Am I really so drunk after half a cup that I'm this uncororinated? Uncoorordianted? Clumsy? Damn alcohol.

*THUD*

Third time! Damn you pole! Wait, just a few minutes ago there were three poles! Bouncing into this pole makes me sober! Thanks Steve Geoffrey Polesworth!

*THUD*

*THUD*

*THUD*

God damn alcohol. Damn it hard. But now I think I'm at least sober enough to get back to the hotel. At least as soon as I remember where it was.

Despite my inebriated state, I was able to get back to the hotel. Remembering Louise's room number was a different matter altogether, but not entirely difficult. The number's all added up equalled 13, so that was an easy way to remember. I can't for the life of me remember the actual room number though, which is kind of weird.

Open the door, enter the room and- WHAT THE HELL? Giant cat in my room! I am in the right room right?

"Y-y-y-y-you're my m-m-master for the day!" The giant cat tells me. "Do whatever you're going to do already!"

Wait, I know that voice. But:

"Louise, why are you dressed up as a cat?"

Well, she wasn't so much dressed up as a cat, so much as wearing a fur bikini and cat ears complete with a tail. I believe I've mentioned not having a cosplay fetish, but I do also believe I mentioned exceptions. Cat ears are one of those exceptions. They look far cuter then they should. Damn it Louise, stop figuring out my interests! I swear to god if she says nyan or any variation thereof just once I cannot guarantee what will happen.

"She wanted to cheer you up, partner!"

Holy shit! A talking sword! Oh wait, that's Derflinger. ... Right. I remember now. He's said so little recently that I forgot he could talk. I wonder if the alcohol helped that fact. At least the shock appears to have sobered me up completely. I think. I hope.

"Cheer me up?" I stupidly ask. "I've been depressed?"

"Of course!" Cat!Louise tells me. "After that mission with the dragon knights..." Louise's voice trails off.

Oh, that. I guess I have been a bit saddened by that. Well, I am feeling a bit better now, considering they're alive, but I might as well ask:

"And what gave you the idea to dress up as a cat? I'm honestly curious."

Louise hesitates and I can see a blush on her face. "S-stupid sword suggested it."

"Hah!" Derflinger laughs. "Liar. We both know-"

"Shut up stupid sword!" Louise says as she pulls out her wand from somewhere and points it at Derflinger. "You want me to melt you down?"

I feel terrible for saying this, but the sight of Louise in what amounts to little more then a bikini, wearing cat ears and a cat tail, is really making me unable to focus on anything. It's far too cute for me to focus on Derflinger's imminent death. Sorry, but you'll have to talk yourself out of this on your own.

Ignoring the arguing Derflinger and Louise, I walk up to the bed and sit down right next to the current cat girl, causing her to yelp in surprise. Apparently she was so focused on Derflinger that she didn't notice me move at all.

"So let me get this straight. You notice me being depressed, so you come up with a plan to fix that and the plan you came up with-"

"I said it was the stupid sword's idea!" Louise snaps at me, still blushing.

"Right. And the plan that 'Derflinger' came up with involved you dressing up in this cat suit?"

"Y-yes," Louise says nervously.

"Right. May I ask why did you decide to do this?" Apparently when drunk I have even more control against these types of things. Normally by now I'd probably been rendered speechless against the power of nyan. Maybe alcohol isn't that bad of a thing after all.

Louise hesitates, and doesn't speak for a minute.

"Um... I d-did it be-because... Er..."

Let's help her out a bit. Here's what she's probably going to respond with anyway:

"Because I'm your familiar, and it's a master's job to make sure their familiars are feeling good?" I offer.

Louise's face brightens and she nods once... Then she gets a look on her face like she's deep in thought.

"No, that's not it," Louise mumbles to herself.

"Well it that isn't it that, then why did you go through with it?"

I mean, Louise could be an exhibitionist, but I doubt that, leaving one other potential option. I think. There are actually probably like five different options, but I'm not really counting at the moment.

"I did it because..." Louise's voice trails off as she thinks. You know, it's hard to take her seriously when all she's wearing is cat ears and the equivalent of a bikini. "I... Don't like seeing you so depressed like that," Louise eventually finishes.

Okay, progress being made. I just never really thought Louise would ever admit to that. Louise, are you sure you're not drunk? I'd like to make sure, otherwise this whole scene is pointless. I think she's sober, at any rate. Anyway, let's press on. It takes a ton of pressure to make a diamond, right?

"Oh? What makes you feel like that Louise?"

Louise pouts and glares at me. "You know already, don't you? You know exactly where I'm going with this, and you're mocking me because of it."

I can honestly say I'd never mock you in this situation. You'd probably kill me, and that's not something I want to happen right now. I value life far too much. Might as well be semi honest with her though.

"I'll admit, I have a few suspicions, but my guesses tend to more often then not be wrong," I tell Louise. "Would you mind clarifying your motives?"

By this point Louise is blushing furiously. Seriously, she's already broken her record from earlier today. Quite an impressive feat, if I do say so myself.

"I... Don't dislike you..." Louise says in a voice only slightly lower then a whisper.

"Sorry, I didn't quite catch that," I'm actually being rather serious there. I had to strain to hear Louise.

"I... Kind of like you," Louise tells me in a slightly louder voice.

20 bucks says that that's most I'll ever get out of Louise in terms of a confession of any kind. And you know what? It's good enough for me. ... I say that, but the little devil sitting on my head is telling me to go for a full confession. I briefly wonder why he's not on my shoulder like he should be, but become preoccupied when I notice that he kicked the angel of my shoulder onto the ground, ensuring complete dominance. Weird.

"So you say you like me, and that's why you don't want to see me depressed," I start, giving in to the temptation to go for the whole nine yards. "Is it alright if I ask the extent of that like? Is it a 'You're a really good friend and it hurts me to see you hurt,' or is it more of a 'I really genuinely like you a whole lot?'"

Louise is silent for a few seconds. "If I had to pick, I-I'd have to say the s-second one."

After Louise says that, I notice something. Our faces appear to be moving closer together. Holy shit, are we going to... I can't help but wonder though, who started to move in for a kiss first, me or Louise?

Disregarding that useless train of thought and not caring who started it, me and Louise were about an inch away from kissing each other.

*Knock knock*

Louise instantly panics. She pushes me away, climbs under the bed covers and pretends to be asleep. I'm really amazed at how quickly she did that. If my life were a manga or comic, then we would have been about to make out, then literally the next panel would be Louise pretending to be asleep. I'm both impressed, and a little irked. Might as well answer the door and see who it is that's coming to visit so late at night.

I stood up, walked over to the door and opened it to find Emily, standing there looking really down.

"Emily? What are you doing here?" and why do you look so miserable?

"There was something else I forgot to mention..." Her voice trails off when she notices Louise sleeping in the bed, completely covered expect for the top of her head. The top of her head that still had cat ears.

"Oh, sorry, was I interrupting a moment between you two?" Emily asks in what I detect to be a forced attempt at making some kind of joke.

"If I say no, I know you wouldn't believe me."

"Sorry, but I didn't know if we'd run into each other again, and this is really important," Emily tells me.

"Okay, what is it?"

Emily fishes around in her pockets, pulls out a vial of some kind and hands it too me. I examine it for a minute, then remember I can't read this world's writing at all.

"Er... What is this? I find myself in a position where I am incapable of reading this writing."

"Oh, right. Sorry," Emily says rather half heartedly. "That's a sleeping potion. Mix it with some kind of liquid, wine usually works best, give it to someone and they'll be out within maybe a minute or two."

I'm not surprised this exists. If love potions exists, can't simple roofies exist in this world? ... I feel the need to apologize for that statement.

"Thanks, but why are you giving it to me?"

"Honestly? I can't say I'm one hundred percent sure," Emily tells me as she stares at the ceiling, apparently lost in thought. "Who would you use it on, anyway? I might as well toss _that_ idea into the ring though."

"What idea?"

"Remember I mentioned the invasion force?" I nod. "This isn't something I heard from anyone, it's just a gut feeling, but I think that you and Louise'll be the ones sent to take care of it. Hey! I'm talking!" Emily says when she sees me open my mouth to argue that point. "Think about it. Does the phrase 'trump card' ring any bells?" _Wait... Oh goddamn it._ "Use in case of emergencies. A invasion force like that can be considered an emergency. I know someone who would tell you to use that potion on Louise and take the opportunity to get the hell out of there while you can, save yourself and all that. I know people who'll tell you to use it on Louise so you can both get out of there alive."

"Which are you?"

Emily hesitates. "Truthfully? If it came down to it, you're probably the person in this world I want to die the least. I'd really do anything I can to at least try and help you live through this," at that, Emily chuckles. "Guess I'm not being to subtle about how I feel, am I?"

Subtlety was thrown out the window the second we went into war. You win wars by being as explosive as possible, not sneaking around and hoping to win!

"Subtlety or not, I don't think I have to tell you how I feel," Emily sighs. "Should I anyway?"

"Well, Louise is right there, but she's probably asleep, so do whatever you feel like."

Emily takes a deep breath. Then-

"JoshIloveyou,thereIsaidit,nowlet'," Emily says in a rush of words.

Honestly? Aside from the speed of that sentence, it was quite anticlimactic. Aren't confessions supposed to have a bit more buildup? Well, at least it confirms my fears of a growing possible harem. Damn it. This isn't something I want to deal with.

"I know you already love Louise," Emily says. "It's something I tried to avoid, but it just happened. I'm sorry. I just-"

"You said let's forget it ever happened, so let's do just that. Besides, what's there to apologize for? Nothing really. For now, let's change the topic to something less awkward. What the hell am I supposed to do with this potion?"

Emily smiles. "Right. Anyway, I'm not going to tell you what to do with that potion. I'm not even going to recommend anything. It's your's now, do with it whatever you want. A few details have already changed from what they should have been, maybe the invasion force won't show up at all."

"Wait, what do you mean by 'a few details have already changed?'"

Emily's silent for a minute. After said minute of silence, she leans forward and gives me a brief kiss on the cheek.

"Come back alive when the war's over and we can talk."

Having said her piece, Emily turns around and leaves. I close the door and walk over to the room's window, open it and stare out the window at the snow covered town. When the hell did it start snowing? How did I miss that?

Moving on, I took another glance at the bottle of sleeping juice. Internally, I debated for a bit. Would I ever have a use for this? What possible situation could I have to put someone to sleep? Those two examples Emily gave were pretty good, but the odds of that happening are probably rather small.

I think and debate with myself for probably a few minutes. Eventually, I look out the window and chuck the bottle as far as I can. It goes flying about a hundred feet before colliding with a lamp post and smashing into pieces, the liquid contained inside seeping into the snow. Normally I'd worry about possibly regretting that, but I have a feeling that I can adapt to the situation and come out on top without a sleeping potion.

Speaking of sleep, that's exactly what Louise has already done. Guess she was really tired, or really bored. Either way, I think my business for the night is done. Sleep sounds like a good idea.

***Scene Break***

So is this really the big "advent festival" that everyone was hyping up? It's the same as that other festival I saw back when we saved Tarbes! What's so special about this, other then the fact that nobody's trying to kill each other yet?

After Emily visited that night, me and Louise avoided mentioned anything about that day. Some things are better left untalked about, and I'm pretty sure we both got the general gist of what that whole situation was about.

And it was all swell. What was swell? The fact that I was at a point in time where my life wasn't in mortal danger! It's a nice change of pace compared to the normal state of affairs that developed over the past few weeks. This is definitely something I can get used to.

Unfortunately, if what Emily said is to be believed, then isn't today the day that invasion force is supposed to drop by and say hello? I guess I could go for something, considering that the past two or three days have been rather boring, considering the shockingly low quality of the festival. Maybe I just set my expectations too high.

I kind of wish Emily specified some kind of place and time for the invasion force to show up so that I at least have an idea of where and when to be, but I can't fault her supposed information network for not being able to provide all the details necessary for something like this. I'm mostly shocked she got this info at all. Where the hell would she get information like the fact that Albion's not going to honor the treaty half a week before it's actually set to happen, with the treaty only having been decided on a few hours earlier?

For now, let's assume there won't be any type of attack and enjoy the festival! Louise is taking a nap in the hotel room for some reason, so I was left on my own to wander around town and see the sights. Welp, let's see if we can find anything interesting on the last day of this big damn festival, shall we?

...

...

...

Okay, it's been quite a few hours, and it's starting to get dark. Did I find anything interesting? Yes, actually, there was a really nice food stand that had all these fancy foreign recipes and things like that. Well, foreign to me, but native to here in Albion. There was also this music booth that played some of the town's native folk music. I'm honestly kind of surprised they still have Earth-type instruments here. The band that was performing was clearly using a guitar, what resembled a bass, and a working drum set. It all looked and seemed to function astronomically differently then from Earth's native versions of those instruments, but they were recognizable in size and sound. It was honestly quite interesting. Maybe if I save up some gold coins I can buy my own Halkegnian bass. I played a little back home, but I obviously had to stop when I dropped by this world. I honestly do kind of miss playing it.

As I intentionally, for once, get lost in my thoughts and allow myself to wander aimlessly I wind up touring around the neighborhood of this town we were staying in. Yes, the glorious sights of... What the hell is this town called again?

Ah well, it's only slightly important. And by that I mean it's not really important at all. Especially since-

"I think... I'm starting to get used to walks like this."

Well I assume you've probably taken this walk many ti- Wait, what? Isn't that... I gotta check this out.

I round the corner and head in the direction I heard that voice and notice three people walking together. Why hello there, Wardes, Fouquet and third person whom I've never seen before in my entire life, how are you doing this fine day?

Just to be safe, Heightened Awareness on. Oh goody! The obvious confirmed! All three are enemies! Yay for red silhouettes! I deactivate Heightened Awareness and decide to follow them. Seeing Wardes and Fouquet together is fishy enough as it is, but who the hell is this third person? I think I remember hearing that Wardes was affiliated with Reconquista, the ruling party of Albion at the moment, so I don't think it's a stretch to say they could be doing or talking about something of some type of worth.

Of course, I can't exactly walk behind them and follow them that way. If I get within earshot, there's a solid chance they'd find out I'm following, so I need to keep a distance, when they get to where they're going, then I can focus on listening to the conversation.

Now the problem, how do I inconspicuously follow them? Rooftops. The answer is always rooftops. People don't look up unless something draws their attention to it. Ignoring the fact that someone might take notice, I examine the building whose corner I was currently using as cover to keep from being used. It was about three stories tall, made of bricks of some kind, and seemed sturdy enough. Alright, let's do this.

I back up a bit so I can take a running start, then sprint towards the wall. When I get close enough, I jump and reach for a few stray bricks. I manage to get a good grip, and plant my feet against the wall to secure myself. I then start climbing up the side of the building using mostly the window sills and tops, with the occasional conveniently placed brick.

I climb up the three stories, then haul myself onto the roof. Huh, that wasn't as tiring as I thought it'd be. Thought I do wish I had brought Derflinger, or some type of weapon. Curse myself for not thinking this would possibly end in a fight.

Ignoring that, I scan around and notice that the trio is still moving. No time to waste, it wouldn't be good if I let them get away! I start taking off after them, jumping from rooftop to rooftops all while keeping my distance to make sure they don't notice me.

Of course, this would probably only work this well if they continue this rather straight line, considering I am not capable of jumping 100 feet across the street to the buildings over there. Why are the streets here so damn wide?

I continue tailing the group until they unfortunately and obvious, come to a three way intersections, and turn left. I was on top of the buildings on the right side of the street.

"Crap! How am I going to cross the street now?" I think aloud.

_Observe the surroundings. Okay, the building currently in front of me is taller the the one I'm currently on by about two stories. On it's own that doesn't help me, but how can I use that to my advantage? Since it's a festival thee are tons of decorations around so... Wait. Decorations. Decorations as in hanging lanterns and other objects like that. I think I feel an idea forming, and everything's in just the right place for me to go through with it, if I'm lucky._

I'd like to point out that if this doesn't work, I will most likely go splat on the floor which would not be pleasant for anyone, especially me. Not like I have a choice considering ht three I'm tailing are starting to get away.

I quickly climb to the top of the slightly taller building in front of me. I stand at the edge of the roof and survey the situation. I can still see Wardes and Fouquet, but barely. I look down and observe the drop that I take if I fail. It wasn't much, only 60 feet or so. Maybe I was wrong in assuming I'd die, but I'd definitely break a bone or two.

Still, this is hopefully the quickest way to get across the street without drawing too much attention. I say hopefully, because if it turns out there was a safer and quicker way then I am going to be really pissed off.

I back up a few steps or so, and run for the edge. I jump off the edge of the roof, and feel myself start plummeting. _I'm taking this moment to pray to every god in existence that I don't die._

As I start approaching around 30 feet to the ground (by they way, my jump got me maybe 16 feet of forward distance), I reach out and pray that I didn't misjudge my distance. I feel my hands clamp in to one of the hanging lamps, which I then use to swing forward. I let go, and use a few more swinging lamps as a sort of way of crossing the gap. Eventually I swing off my last lamp and collide with the building on the other side of the street, but I'm able to get a solid grip and pull myself onto the roof. I roll over and lie in my back for a bit to catch my breath. Why did I think using the lanterns as swing set was a good idea? It was a fun idea, but not a good one. Not a good idea at all. Kids, never try that at home. Unless you really want to.

Damn it, I need to get up and keep trailing them. This better be freaking worth it, or I am going to be really pissed off.

***A little bit later***

*Pant pant pant* Damn everything. Damn every single thing. Why the hell did they have to walk around so much! Couldn't they at least be considerate of the person tailing them? Running across rooftops, swinging from hanging lamps and jumping across various roof decorations isn't easy! It's difficult and tiring! Well, at least the trio finally stopped.

Now to listen in on their conversation that I'll only be able to pick up the last part of due to the fact that they were talking while walking, and I can't eavesdrop and parkour at the same time, my skills don't extend that far.

"It's the closest water source, but it's not the only one," Fouquet says as the group moves towards a well.

"This should work," purple haired lady of mystery says.

She approaches the well and puts on some kind of fancy purple ring. Fouquet and Wardes look surprised at the ring.

"Isn't that Cromwell's ring?" Wardes asks.

Wait, let the hamsters on wheels that power my brain run a bit to provide my thoughts. Cromwell stole Water Spirit's ring. Cromwell's ring = Ring of Andvarri. Purple lady has Cromwell's ring. Situation = Purple lady has Ring of Andvarri.

Wait, purple has the Ring of Andvarri? What the shit? What's she using it for? How could-

"Water is the magic of life," is something I manage to pick up during my little internal rant.

Water magic = magic of life. Ring of Andvarri = water magic ring. Ergo, Ring of Andvarri = control of water magic = control of the magic of life.

Wow, my hamster wheel brain must be working overtime. Anyway, I see the purple lady put on the Ring of Andvarri and step forward, right in front of the well. Then she starts glowing a slight purple light.

"Using this ring, I can control the town," she says as the ring drops _something_ into the well, which glows purple before subsiding.

The three talk about something else and go off to talk, but I have more important things to deal with. Control the town?

_Serious thinking time. Let's for now assume that she literally meant control the town, and just put in some kind of mind controlling agent into the water. This mind controlling agent would therefore affect everyone who drinks from the water wells and other sources of water in this town. Let's assume that the worst case scenario happens and everyone here drinks the water. Congrats, you've got around one or two thousand untrained civilians under your command, big whoop. That really wouldn't help much unless you maybe used it a distrac- wait. That's it! If they used the mind control agent on even just a third of the population, then you could have riots. These riots would be the perfect distraction to send in an invasion force and completely wipe out everyone here, which is most of Tristain's military strength that was here on vacation. The attack would cripple us, and leave us unable to put up much of a fight at all. Those magnificent bastards._

Perhaps I should mention this to someone, maybe Louise. She'll probably have an idea of what to do.

***Scene Break***

"Eep!" Is the first thing Louise says when she hears me enter the room. She apparently was taking a nap or something, because she was still in the bed when I entered. Does using magic really make you that tired?

"What? You've never had your roommate enter the room through the window before? It happens to me every other Thursday." _Not really, but it feels like it sometimes._

"Josh? Why did you climb in through the window? For a second I thought you were a burglar or something!" Louise yells at me.

"It was the fastest way in, and I was in the mood for climbing considering it's what I've been doing for the past 30 minutes while tailing Wardes, Fouquet and some other chick through the city."

"Wh-What? Wardes is still alive?" Louise asks me. "And Fouquet still isn't in jail?"

"I know. The justice system here sucks." _Then again, Earth isn't much better at times._ "Anyway, I started following them by keeping on the rooftops and things like that, since people never look up they never would have noticed me-"

"How do you manage to follow them from rooftop to rooftop?" Louise asks.

"Parkour. Remember I mentioned that? It's basic foundation is climbing and jumping on and around buildings."

"And what if they, say, crossed the street or something?" Louise asks me. "You don't expect me to believe you leapt from building to building across the street, do you? You'd need a wind spell to move you that far!"

"Lanterns."

"Excuse me?" Louise asks, clearly confused.

"You know how since it's a festival, people have all sorts of lanterns and decorations hanging around?" Louise nods. "I just swung around on those if I ever need to cross a gap that I couldn't get across by normal jumping means."

Louise stares at me blankly. I can't quite read minds, manners, or even body language yet, but I'm pretty sure Louise is thinking "What the shit?"

"You're insane," She tells me after around 30 seconds of silence.

"Jason told me that all the time when we climbed around town together," I mention. "Personally I think the only time it was deserved was when I, completely on accident I assure you, jumped onto the back of a moving train, jumped off, and grabbed onto a pole literally seconds before I wound up splattered on a wall, just barely keeping myself alive. I damn near dislocated my shoulder."

Well, there was also that time I climbed the building and caught a bus by jumping onto it's roof and hitching a ride that way. I would have been caught, and probably arrested, but there was never any evidence to persecute me. Again, princess, hoods can hide your face, but only if you wear them correctly, otherwise it just doesn't work!

"I think we're getting off topic," Louise says in a tone of voice the indicates she wants to change the subject as quickly as possible. "What did you learn from trailing them?"

Oh! Right! That's why I rushed over here! My capacity for remembering things still hasn't improved.

_Well, they had a nice chat, drank some tea, Fouquet had coffee, and got into an argument with Wardes over which is better, coffee or tea. They then came to blows and was settled when they decided that "diplomatic negotiations" on a cheap hotel bed would be a better solution and what the hell am I talking about?_

"Crazy purple lady," as I have now decided to name her, "said something about having the Ring of Andvarri-"

"What! The water spirit's ring?" Louise asks.

_No, It's Wesker's ring._

I nod in reply. "Yeah, that one. Anyway, she used the ring to enchant the water or something so she could control anyone who drank the water, most likely to cause some kind of distraction, send in an invasion force, and generally screw things up for us in around 34 different ways. Pleasant, no?"

"No! It's not good you stupid familiar!" _Didn't catch my sarcasm._ "We need to go warn the generals about this!"

And so me and Louise got everything we needed, not like we have much anyway, and ran out of the hotel to go warn the generals. ... Only to find that apparently everyone had gone crazy, considering half of the people we saw had glowing purple eyes and were attacking civilians.

"I think we're a little late," I remark.

Louise glares at me. "Gee, you think? I thought this was a case of make believe gone terribly wrong!"

"You appear to have inherited my usage of sarcasm whenever I feel far too nervous about something to properly freak out. It could use a bit more deadpan though."

"Must have slipped my mind when I noticed the innocents being attacked. My apologies."

"You sound so genuine. I truly believe you feel sorry for a lack of deadpan remarks."

"As opposed to your over reliance on them?"

"You accuse me of using sarcasm far too often. I'm offended, Louise."

"Wounded even?"

"Hurt, Louise."

"I'll make sure to call a medic when we're done here to fix your poor, poor ouchies. For now, I think we should either find the generals, or pretend this was a bad dream," Louise says as she starts walking off towards the general's camp and I follow.

"You do the first, I'll stay here and do the second."

"Scared of having to fight mind controlled civilians? Don't worry, I hear they only kill you if your an innocent bystander. In your case they'd probably only massacre you brutally."

"Not scared, so much as tired and lazy."

"You're tired already? That's honestly quite pathetic."

"Oh, I didn't know you spent the last half hour running and swinging across rooftops trailing three of our known enemies. You must have exercised for a whole five minutes to get that type of stamina."

"Don't need to. My ability to put up with you at times is far more taxing then any amount of physical exercise."

"Says the mage who collapses after a few big spells. I at least did all the running on my own, without the gandalfar powers or abilities."

"Quite impressive. Gandalfar probably would have added, what, a few additional seconds worth of stamina?"

"Gandalfar multiplies abilities and stamina, not adds to. I expected you to know that considering all that studying you did instead of magic practice and physical exercise."

"Multiplying small numbers still only gives you a small number."

"I'm not the one who needs to worry about small numbers."

"Oh, I'm sure you do. After all, I'm sure you'd rather getting better proportions out of any deal."

"You appear to be sore about getting the short end of the stick when it comes to proportions."

"Says the one beating people to death with the stick."

"You didn't have to insult Derflinger. Besides, I'm not the one whose only job is to point a stick at people."

"Right. You only protect the stick wielder. Must be the absolute worst job ever."

"It comes with solid perks."

"Perks he says! Great criteria for job choice."

"Both of you," Derflinger says eventually. "Can you stop your flirting for a minute and actually focus on why you two came to the generals tent in the first place?"

"She started it."

"Says the guy who made the brilliant observation that we were a little late in preventing half the town from being mind controlled."

"I only vocalized the thought. If I didn't, you probably would have."

"You assume I feel the need to vocalize the obvious when I see it. I'm offended."

"Wounded even?"

"Closer to annoyed."

"Maybe we should talk to those generals before your annoyance becomes anger."

"As it tends to, does it not?"

"It's the apocalypse, Louise admitted she gets angry on occasion!"

"We've already entered a mini apocalypse, that statement is redundant."

"Go talk with the generals, then we can discuss the intricacies of redundancy."

Louise nods, then enters the generals tent. When the hell did we get here? Doesn't really matter. Let's just get some kind of briefing, get some kind of objective then get the hell out of here.

After a few minutes, Louise walks out of the generals tent, her face the palest I've ever seen it. I take it the discussion went well?

"Sooooo... What happened?" I asked Louise.

Instead of responding, Louise turns and starts walking off in a seemingly random direction.

"Hey!" I say as I run up to her and put a hand on her shoulder to stop her. "So what's going on? What's happening, and why do you apparently seem so lifeless?"

In response, Louise pulls a letter out of her pocket and hands it to me, but she still doesn't turn to face me. I open it up and attempt to read it.

"Why does everyone forget that I can't read this world's writing?" _Including me, apparently?_

"I can help with that," Derflinger says from his place in the sheathe on my back. He's silent for a minute. "A backup? Not very honorable."

"That helps a lot Derf, it really does. Care to explain a bit more?" _Like how a sword can read or ever learned how to read?_

"Not sure you're going to like it, but okay. Basically, Albion broke the treaty and is sending an invasion force of 70,000 soldiers over. The missy here is being sent to stall them to allow our troops time to escape. Retreat and failure are not options."

Damn it Emily, why'd you have to be right? Why did you have to know this? Damn information networks. How do they work anyway? More importantly, how did Emily become the center of one despite being a teenage maid? It makes no sense.

And no, I'm not ignoring the most important part of this whole thing. The want Louise, a _single_ mage, to fight an army of _70,000? _Are they stupid? No matter how powerful a mage is, don't they need time to cast their spells? Louise'd get one, maybe two spells off it she's lucky before they get within a close enough range to KILL her. This is a terrible idea for so many reasons, we are so screwed.

"Please tell me you're not going to do this," I almost beg.

Louise shakes her head.

"You're actually going to do this? You're going to try and stall an army of that size!"

Louise nods her head. She's still not facing me so I can't see her expression. I can't even begin to think what's going through her head. *sigh* Well, I did say this world would be the death of me.

"Well then lead the way, master."

"What!" Louise exclaims as she whirls around to look at me, her expression that of complete shock.

"I think I know you well enough that you'll pull out some kind of contrived reason for doing this, and I can think of a few. Protect the princess, protect Tristain, protect our friends, preserve your honor, gain recognition, things like that. I can already tell that no matter what argument I come up with, you'll find some way to counter it, probably by twisting my arm with the fact that if we sit and do nothing, a whole lot of innocent people, a few of which are our friends, are going to die. Believe me, I realize that. As a result, I also realize that I can't do anything to stop you from going, and as your familiar, isn't it only right that I march off with you and fight also?"

"N-No!" Louise yells at me. "Absolutely not! I forbid you from helping me!"

"What? Why?"

"You have nothing to do with this!" Louise yells at me. "This isn't your world, and this isn't your war! You shouldn't even be here!"

"And yet, here I am. Maybe you're right. This isn't my planet. But does that mean I don't have anything to do with it? Absolutely not! I have everything to do with this! I chose to get involved in this. I chose to help you out and support you in this endeavor of yours. I'm here because I chose to be, not because you told me to."

"And now I'm telling you to run away!" Louise screams at me, the beginnings of tears forming in her eyes. "I'm telling you that you've done enough. You've helped me many times, and saved my life a few time as well. I could never begin to tell you how grateful I am for that. But you've already done more then I could have asked you too."

"Since you brought it up, I would like to point out that I am your familiar. As your familiar it is my job to protect you. Am I doing my job if I let you march off on a suicide mission? No!"

"Also as my familiar, it's your job to do what I say!"

"Because I've done such a great job of that in the past."

"Don't even start," Louise tells me with a glare.

"Start what? Pointing out how I've never really obeyed any of your orders? Never really listened when you told me what to do but did it anyway? I couldn't care less! If I don't do what you ask, it's because I felt there was a better course of action! And there's one right now! If you go and do this on your own, you will die!"

"And if you try to help me then you'll die too!" Louise exclaims.

"You think I care? If you go and do that on your own, you're fighting with a handicap. You'll get maybe two spells out before they realize you're the one casting and target you! You can't cast if you don't have the time to chant the spell!"

"As opposed to if you were there to absorb all of the attacks for me?" Louise asks. "You'd buy me maybe another few seconds, at most. If I only get two spells, then I'll just have to make sure they're explosive enough to destroy the army!"

"Would you just listen to reason? This isn't something you can do on your own!"

"And would you listen to me?" Louise says with a glare. "This is something I need to do myself. I'm not going to risk you dying, so would you just swallow your pride and leave before you get yourself killed!"

"Pride? You think I refuse to run away because I'm afraid of hurting my pride? It's nothing to do with pride!"

"Then what is it? Why are you so intent on facing whatever you face with no heed for the consequences?" Louise inquires.

"Because when you run away it's the same as doing nothing!" I reply. "When you do nothing, people die! Just like with-"

I stop mid sentence.

"Just like with what?" Louise asks, annoyance and confusion obvious on her face.

Just like with... Where did that come from? _Just like with... Her?_ I finish the thought. Suddenly, flashes of images invade my head and assault my brain. Earth, my home town, walking along, a knife coming down towards me, a scream, a girl with a deep gash in her chest, her shirt stained with blood. Who... Who is she? Do I know her? I must but... What's her name? I can't even remember what she looked like, all I have is an impression of sorts. I try to remember more, but all I do is give myself a headache. A piercing headache that forces me to clutch my head with my hands.

"Josh, are you okay?" Louise asks worriedly.

"I don't know," I whisper to myself. "I just don't know."

"I'm sorry Josh," Louise tells me. "But I have to do this. I'm sorry."

"It's fine. It looks like there's nothing I can do or say to stop you," I say with a sigh as I release my head and look at Louise. "Any last requests or words you'd like to say?"

Louise is silent for a minute, then glances off to the side. Then she starts blushing.

"Um... Well... I am about to potentially die, and I am still unmarried so..." Louise gulps then turns and looks me in the eye, her face still dyed really red. "Remember what I said back at my family's estate? If there was no one else..."

"I'd suffice," I complete the sentence. "Wait, are you saying-"

"Don't get the wrong idea!" Louise says, her face lighting up another shade of red. "It's only unpleasant to die before being married. You just happen to be the best option right now!"

What about me makes me the best option? Is it that I love you, or (I'm pretty much 99% sure) that you love me, or what else? Ah well. I really don't want to think about anything at the moment, so might as well get this settled.

***Scene Break***

Just what are the odds that there happened to be a church on the outskirts of town, and that we had enough time to get through with this before the invading force arrives! Sometimes I feel like the universe has a rather sick sense of humor. "Oh? You two want to be married? Okay! You'll have enough time to get it done, but then immediately afterwards your wife's gonna march off to her certain death! Also, tomorrow's going to be a nice day for a picnic, so pack some sandwiches!" Thanks universe. That makes me feel much better.

Well, there's no one here at the church, so in terms of officialness, this wedding has about as much as a bootleg copy of a nonexistent movie. While Louise prays to some statue of what I assume is their god, founder, whatever he's called, I simply stand around awkwardly, lamenting my decision to toss the sleeping juice. Eventually, Louise finishes up and walks over to me.

"So how exactly do we do this?" I ask Louise as we stand in front of the alter in the church. "My expertise does not lie in matrimonial settings."

"I honestly don't really know," Louise says nervously.

"So you don't know, but you were almost part of one? How does that work exactly?"

"And I suppose you weren't there as a witness?" Louise asks with a wry smirk.

"Hmm... Point conceded. Still, as far as I'm aware, it's as simple as the priest person asking both parties if they're really sure about it. If they say yes, the two parties kiss, then confetti is thrown all around."

"S-so, do you take me as your wife?" Louise asks nervously.

Option 1: "Sure."

Option 2: "I love you."

Option 3: Stab her in the stomach, ensuring she's incapable of movement, then go and fight the army on my own to surely die while leaving Louise to bleed to death in a church.

... Where do I even come up with options like that?

"Yes Louise, I'd be happy with marrying you," I tell her. "Now, are you sure you want to marry me?"

Louise is silent for a minute, and stands there deep in thought while blushing. 30 seconds later-

"Yes. I want to go through with this." Louise hesitates for a moment after saying that. "Josh?"

"Yes, Louise?"

"I... Um... I..." _Take your time, not like we're being invaded._

Eventually Louise sighs, almost as in defeat. She leans forward and gives me a kiss on the lips. Brief, but it definitely happened. Congratulations me, you're sort of, maybe, married, I think.

After breaking the kiss, Louise runs to the entrance of the church and opens the door. She takes a step outside, then turns around and looks at me.

"Thank you for everything Josh. I'm glad I was able to meet you," she tells me with a smile.

"The feeling's mutual. Bye Louise."

"Good bye Josh."

I might have imagined it, but it definitely looked like there were a few tears moving down Louise's face as she turned and left the church. It wouldn't surprise me.

"I get married, then immediately widowed when she decides to go get herself killed to save a city." I sigh.

"Fukou da," and "yare yare" are two phrases that come to mind when it comes to describing how I feel at the moment. Damn everything.

"So that's it?" Derflinger asks me. "You're just giving up?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"Yes, you do. You can choose to go after the missy and help her out."

"Did she not get through saying she doesn't want me to help and that she doesn't want me to die? I dunno, it seems like kind of a slap to the face if I went and fought alongside her."

"Okay, so she asked you nicely not to help her," Derflinger reaffirms. "Should you care? When was the last time you bothered listening to her about things like that?"

"Derflinger, I really don't want to argue this at the moment. I'm not exactly in the mood right now."

"So you'd prefer to talk about it when the missy's dead and gone? Because that's what's going to happen if you don't go and help."

"And if I help, I die too. Solid plan."

"Do you have a better one?"

...

"Alright Derf, you win. Let's go help Louise."

"Wait, what? Really? I expected a much longer, more drawn out argument," Derflinger says in amazement.

"Like I said, I don't feel like arguing at the moment. Besides, you already knew I wanted to go help her out anyway. So Derflinger, since you actually read the letter, where to now?"

***Scene Break***

"And you're sure this is the right place?" I ask Derflinger. "Because I swear, if we wound up in the wrong place-"

"Don't worry," Derflinger assures me. "I'm positive. The missy should d on that hill up ahead."

"Got it. Thanks for the directions."

"Someone had to know them," Derflinger responds, immeadiately making me sad that minimaps don't exist in reality. I want to be able to just put up a waypoint and know where I'm going by instinct. *sigh* Us video game protagonists have it rough sometimes.

Ignoring my rants, I run forward until I could see a hill, which I approached. As I approached, I was able to make out a lone figure on the too of the hill. This is where normally someone would go all poetic about the aforementioned lone figure, but I suck at that.

...

What the hell, I'm probably going to die soon, let's give it a try!

The lone figure stood atop the crest of the hill. Her long, billowing, pink hair flowed gallantly in the gentle, but foreboding breeze. She stood solemnly, but determinedly, ready to face down the enormous army of countless trained soldiers, each of which probably had a spouse, kids, two days until retirement and it was probably the birthday of a few of them as well. And the lone figure was going to blow the **** out of them using her fancy, magic stick. The bodies would be sent flying, contorting in every direction in the cool, calm, air. Their giblets would fly in every direction! And that's assuming there was enough of them to even be called giblets! MUAHAHAHAHAHA! Blood for the blood god! Skulls for the skull throne!

Hmmm... Maybe I should stop before it gets any worse, as all my poetry tends to.

Ignoring all that, I ran up the hill and saw Louise at the top, staring intently at the horizon. If you looked hard enough, you could see the approaching army. Goddamn, is that what an army of 70,000 looks like? It's freaking huge! We're screwed! Anyway, Louise appears to be so focused on that approaching army that she didn't here me show up. That's annoying. What if I was an assassin? I could have just walked up, stabbed her in the back, and Albion would have won then and there. Louise, you need to pay attention to your surroundings more.

I open my mouth to announce my presence, but then I hear Louise sigh.

"Is this it?" _Well, that depends on your definition of it._ "Selfish as it is, I wish I could see you one last time, Josh."

"Wish granted," I respond, prompting Louise to gasp and turn around.

"Wh-what?"

"Honestly, if I were you I'd have used my wish on something more dramatic, like living to see another day, or being strong enough to defeat this obstacle, or something like that, but being able to see me works too. It's easy to grant as well."

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE YOU STUPID FAMILIAR?" Louise yells at me at decibel levels that damn near break my eardrums.

"I'm not a hundred percent sure, but I don't think that's the right reaction to have," I reply.

"THAT'S NOT THE POINT!" Louise takes a deep breath and calms down. "Didn't I tell you I didn't want you helping me with this? This is something I need to do on my own."

"Want, no-"

"Don't even start!" Louise yells at me, her face starting to redden with anger. "You know what? I've had it with you! You never listen to anything I say!"

Is this the proper time to discus things like this? I open my mouth to vocalize that thought process, but Louise is on a roll, and interrupts the unspoken thoughts.

"Don't say anything!" She tells me. "You're always like this! I tell you to do something, and you don't do it! Like with the duel with Guiche, or any point during the trip to Albion to deliver the letter," _When the hell did I disobey you there?_ "Or during that mission for the princess when I suggested an easy way to double our money, or demanding that we not act like beggars on the street!" _Hey, that plan worked, don't get pissed at me for it._

Louise takes a breath, then continues with her rant.

"Now, all I ask is for you to listen to me for once in your life, and you can't even do that!" Louise exclaims. "I told you, I can handle this. I don't need you-"

Due to my worry about the army getting to us before we even notice do to this ongoing rant, I decided to take the interrupt option to get things rolling. How did I chose to stop Louise from talking? Simple. I kissed her. She seemed slightly surprised at first, but it wasn't that quick before she pretty much gave in and started kissing me back. My internal clock says we made out for around 45 seconds, before we broke the kiss.

"You talk too much sometimes," I tell Louise, causing her face to blush with embarrassment rather then anger for once today. "I'm sure you could deal with this on your own, but I'm offering to help, for hopefully obvious reasons. Besides, doesn't a great familiar protect it's master, no matter the cost?" I add with a wry smile.

"B-But-"

"Can we start the battle or do I have to kiss you again?" I ask.

Louise gives me a half-hearted attempt at an angry glare, but it passes quickly and she nods.

"You go intercept them and keep them distracted so I can get as many spells as possible out," Louise tells me. "I'll be counting on you."

"No problem," I say with a smile. I walk past her in the direction of the approaching army. I grab Derflinger's hilt, unsheathe him, and get ready for battle.

"Josh?"

"Yes, Louise?" Come on, it's only been three steps.

"I love you," Louise tells me.

There's a slight silence in the air for a few seconds. _Dear god. She said it. She actually said it. It makes sense, We're both potentially to die, but I still never thought she's actually say it._

"I love you too," I reply, as I give her one last, quick kiss on the lips before turning and running off to go fight an army.

The army's a solid distance away, therefore if I go distract them now, they shouldn't be able to see Louise. They're more likely then not notice the explosions, but they hopefully won't know where they're coming from. That's the good thing. The bad thing is, since it's so far away, Louise could accidentally hit me, and I have far too much time to actually think about what I'm doing before starting the fight.

I'm about to take on an army of 70,000 highly trained soldiers.

It's not that bad, think of it like Sora against the 1000 heartless. Except these aren't the weakest enemies in the game, they're heavily armored and trained soldiers and mages. And I don't have magic or an inter-dimensional magical sword key, or access to reaction commands to do badass stuff. I'm just a kid, with a shiny sword that can move fast, and have backup from an explosion maker. The odds aren't in my favor.

This sucks. At least it's kind of a cool way of dying. I do wish it was a bit more of a bang though, instead of being mauled by people I don't know. Picture this: Something, maybe an important building or even the entire world is being endangered. Maybe the bad guy's got some kind of super death laser that he's pointing at the moon, which'll cause the chunks to fall to the planet destroying civilization. I'm sent to go stop the machine, but the only way to do that is to destroy it, so I fight my way to it's core and set it to self destruct. It's not enough time for me to get out of there, so I tell my friends or crew or whoever helped me to get out of there and live their own lives instead of dying with me. Maybe the person I might have had as a love interest completely disregards me and stays by my side, and we're both caught in the explosion killing us both, but saving the world. That would be a freaking awesome death.

Thinking about it, what mental music should I play? I'm leaning towards EMIYA, but I am far too undeserving of that piece of music. When I become badass enough to create swords with my mind, then maybe, but until then that song is out of my reach. In keeping with the last song I used, I think I'll go with Protectors of the Earth. ... Yeah, this'll work.

Wait, let's think about this. I don't need to stop the army, I just need to delay it! If I can cause enough chaos to disorder them for a bit, then everyone can escape, mission accomplished! What's the easiest way to create chaos? Eliminate the chain of command. Get rid of those in charge, and order turns to chaos. The problem is, how do I know who's in charge? It's a problem I have an easy solution to.

Heightened Awareness, on.

My god, there's a whole lot of red silhouettes. But, it worked as I intended. Sprinkled out through the sea of red are a few flecks of yellow, most likely the commanding officers, or people of rather high rank. I know my targets. Good thing I figure out a plan, because I just hit the army. Let's begin the fight.

I can see that there's definitely a look of surprise on the enemies' faces when they see me approach. _"One kid against an army? Surely you just!" _Well, my names not Shirley, and I'm the goddamn batma- I mean, goddamn Gandalfer, bitches! Let's rock and roll! Cue mental music!

Instead of bothering with the guys in the front, I jump and land about 20 feet behind enemy lines. They look confused for a second, but then one person tries to slash at me with his sword, which I parry, then counter by by cutting into her shoulder, causing him to drop his sword and clutch his wound. One down, a hell of a lot more to go. But these guys aren't my problem, I'll leave them to Louise with her AoE explosion spells when she's ready which is hopefully soon.

I see that the first yellow silhouette is within a solid distance from me. I start taking out soldiers on my way there, but I'm trying to be careful not to directly kill anyone. If I say, cut off their arm and they die of blood loss, I'll feel a lot less bad then if I straight up beheaded them, because they at least had a chance to live.

Yellow silhouette 1 seems to notice me approaching, because he chants a spell, and a large fireball gets flung my way. I could use Derflinger to absorb it, but instead I dodge roll to the left, and the fireball instead takes out a few soldiers unfortunate enough to be in the line of fire. I take the opportunity to jump up, land on a guy's head, and run across some more heads as a shortcut to get to my first target. He notices, and tries fireball again. I leap up, have Derflinger absorb the fireball, and then slash, I land on the ground next to target 1's severed head. _Damn it! I was too busy thinking about beheadings after mentioning it. Well, human kill count: 1_.

Before I can think of what to do next, I hear an explosion, and see one off to my right. And wow is it big. Hell, it seems like it even took out targets 2 and 3! Thanks Louise!

Unfortunately, due to the explosion, I was distracted, and didn't notice the sword coming down towards my shoulder until it was almost too late. I turn to dodge, but I don't turn enough, and the sword cuts my arm a bit. Considering the amount of times I've hurt myself badly back home, the sight of my own blood doesn't dizzy me as much as it should have. Good thing too, considering if I froze up, I'd be dead right now. I duck another of the soldiers swings, and lop off his arm at the elbow before kicking him in the face and sending him to the ground. I smash in the helmet of one soldier with Derflinger's hilt, before knocking another one out using the flat of his blade.

The explosions are coming more rapidly now. Three more just happened in the span of around 30 seconds. I don't know if it's luck, or Louise knows more then I do, but she's taking out at least one commander with each explosion. There's only two yellows left.

Scratch that, none. Louise took out all the high ranking officials with her explosions alone. I'm just pissed I didn't get to do much other then take out the first target, but this frees me up to focus on the actual battle.

Fight with one sword seems to be presenting a disadvantage. Considering the amount of people, I can't block all possible attacks. I slash one soldier across the chest, only for one to pop into my field of vision and slash at me. It grazes my side, which is suddenly filled with a lot of pain. _Note to self: getting cut with a sword hurts a lot._

I intentionally blot out the pain, grab the sword by the handle, and kick the guy away, forcing him to let go of the sword. The sword's a claymore of some kind according to my gandalfer-ness. I spin the sword and Derflinger around to show off a bit, and then get to work.

It turns out, duel wielding swords isn't like duel wielding guns, in that's it's actually semi-practical. When duel wielding guns, you have to worry about the considerable loss in accuracy that comes in trying to aim two weapons at the same time. With two swords, they both function as an extension of your arm, giving you potentially greater variety of performable moves and techniques.

Louise's explosions are getting less frequent, and smaller as well. We need to wrap this up before Louise collapses from exhaustion, and I collapse from blood loss.

Using both blades, I being carving my way through the enemies around me. As I get busy, I take about two arrows, one in my shoulder, and one a little above my knee. They hurt like hell. You know how in movies and stuff when people get shot by an arrow they just pull it out like it's nothing? Yeah, that doesn't work in real life. Arrows hurt like hell. The only reason I was able to pull them out and keep fighting is becauseI needed to, otherwise that might have been the point where I collapsed.

The battle rages on. I keep cutting through the enemies, absorbing spells with Derflinger whenever they appear, and continue the onslaught. Louise's explosions have pretty much been reduced to that of a grenade, but they're still coming which is immensely useful. I don't know how long the battle lasted, an hour? 30 minutes?

Eventually, I heard exactly the words I prayed that I'd hear.

"Retreat!"

"Fall back!"

The soldiers started turning around and fleeing. Running in the direction opposite of the town we were having evacuate.

"You're damn right you better evacuate!" I yell at the army as it turns and runs. "And take your stupid sword with you!" I say as I toss the claymore somewhere into the crowd. I think it hit someone on the head and knocked them out, but I'm not really sure.

Once the entire, conscious and alive, members of the army have left I turn around and slowly make my way over to the hill where Louise is. It wasn't easy. Let's tally up my injuries:

One medium sized slash on my left arm

One solidly sized slash to my right side

One arrow through my shoulder

One arrow into my thigh, close to the knee (and I still plan on adventuring, making me more badass then 90% of Skyrim's guards)

Slight burns on parts of my body from a few fireball spells I didn't quite notice until they were practically upon me

Overall assessment: I got pretty screwed up and am bleeding from practically all over my body. Damn it.

Ignoring my imminent bleeding out, I walked over to Louise on the hill. Well, she came over to me first when she saw me and saw how beat up I got. I swear to any god you want, if she asks me if I'm okay-

"We did it," are Louise's first words when she gets to me. She's panting pretty hard, and looks like she's having trouble keeping herself awake. I don't blame her. She took out a whole warship and practically knocked herself out, and now she's casting multiple huge explosions? It's a wonder either of us are still alive.

"What'd I say, master Louise?" I say while forcing a smile. "What did I-"

My words are cut off when I feel my body lock up. The apparent lack of blood seems to have caught up with me. I feel my knees buckle, and then I fall face first onto the dirt. Great, now I've got a headache in addition to everything I've gotten earlier.

"Josh!" Louise cries out when she sees me fall. "Don't panic, I can... I can," Louise words take on a slight drowsiness to them, and she also slumps to her knees before hitting the dirt right next to me.

"Used up a little too much willpower, eh master?" I ask.

"Yeah," Louise admits with a tentative smile. "I forgot that overdoing it and using too much willpower isn't good for a mage's health. More then a few mages have died that way."

"If we are going to die, we at least die together, right?" I say as I try my best to put a reassuring smile on my face. Damn it, it hurts to do so much as think.

"Yeah, I guess we do have each other," Louise agrees.

"I love you Louise."

"I love you Josh."

In what appears to be a great effort, Louise reaches out and puts her hand on mine. We both share one last smile, before everything goes to black and I start to lost consciousness. The only thing I was thinking as my world faded to black was how low my odds of ever waking up were.

***Author notes***

Uncreative: So then I stripped the corpse naked, threw it into the river, and rode my horse away before the guards showed up.

Ariana: *Whistle* Sounds like a hell of a game. I still can't believe you punched a dragon to death.

Uncreative: When you're a high enough level and put all your points into strength, anything's possible. For example- Oh shit! We're on!

Ariana: What? Okay, ahem, so then Mr. Author, what happened this chapter?

Uncreative: Well, for a season finale it had an admittedly shitty final battle, which I would like to apologize for. I tried to get this out a bit sooner, and writing a battle like that's really hard to do. That's what I get for this being the only chapter I didn't have written before uploading the story at all.

Ariana: So before even posting the first chapter, you had everything up to this point written out already? If that's true, why didn't you just post it all at once?

Uncreative: Well for one, I wanted to have some kind of time to edit each chapter before it went up. Each chapter you see in this story was modified in some way shape or form before being. Hell, even chapter 1 took a few heavy modifications five minutes before posting when I completely rewrote the Guiche fight. Also, since this chapter wasn't done yet, I wanted to give myself as much time as possible to get it down before my own self imposed deadline which I can't even remember anymore.

Ariana: So the readers can't even begin to expect part 2 for a while, can they Mr. Author?

Uncreative: Part 2, season 2, whatever you want to call it isn't getting a single sentence posted until it's completely, or at least 95% done. Which hopefully won't take as long. After all, since I'm covering a bit less then this season, I should be able to finish it up more quickly.

Ariana: Awesome. Now onto something a bit more author's note related. So I dug around on your computer, checked out everything you have planned from now until next season of stories, and I found the bios you wrote up for each of the main characters of this story season.

Uncreative: Good catch. For my own personal reference, I wrote up bios for them main characters of stories I've either written now or previously (i.e. Saito, Shana Louise 1, Louise 2, and Joshua) and stories I haven't written yet but have planned (characters such as Eve, Scott, and Elise). Fun fact, I believe Emily mentioned in chapter two she knew some people named Scott and Elise. That was a happy accident. In the future, two stories I right will star OCs with those names, But are so far unrelated to this story and set of characters I almost can't help buy laugh.

Ariana: Right. So I was reading through Joshua's profile and noticed some interesting things. His favorite anime is Sailor Moon?

Uncreative: Oops, that's a typo. That's his second favorite, his favorite anime is Puella Magi Madoka Magica.

Ariana: He really likes magical girls, doesn't he? I'd ask if it's a fetish of his, but under assorted notes it says "Despite claims to the contrary, Joshua does indeed have both cosplay and ponytail fetishes."

Josh: It's not a fetish! I just think they look good, that's all.

Uncreative: Josh? When'd you get here? Part 2 doesn't start for a while.

Josh: I got here a bit early, and the door was unlocked, so I thought I'd stop by.

Uncreative: The door to my house, or the door to this commentary room?

Josh: Both.

Uncreative: Well, might as well introduce you. You know who I am, but this girl right here is Ariana.

Ariana: Hi Josh!

Josh: We've met already, remember?

Ariana: Oh yeah. I love non-canon environments. They allow main characters of completely different stories to meet while picking up groceries. It's really quite funny.

Uncreative: Quite interesting indeed.

Josh: Funny, not interesting.

Uncreative: Thank you. Anyway, since part 2 is a quite a ways away, I figured that I'd maybe show off an excerpt from a scene in a chapter I haven't gotten around to writing yet to whet your appetite.

Ariana: Oh! What scene?

Josh: Is it the scene that technically follows this one, since that'd make the most sense to post?

Uncreative: Wrong. It's actually my favorite scene in this entire story. It helped me come up with one or two actual plot points, that's how important it was to me in the planning stage.

Ariana: Oooh, it's the first scene you ever came up with for the fic, isn't it?

Uncreative: Yep. Remember back to chapter 1 when Ariana mentioned that this was originally a rewrite of one of my older stories, but it got changed into what it is now? That's a rhetorical question Josh, you don't need to answer. Well when I got the idea to make this it's own thing, a scene popped into my mind. A solid chunk of that scene is what you're going to be seeing. **Note: This following excerpt is from chapter 13 or 14 **(I'm not sure how I'm going to break the story up yet) **and, as such, contains possibly very heavy spoilers. Those who don't want to be spoiled, We'll se you next time.**

***Excerpt Start***

"Um... H-hey, you mind if I ask for a favor?"

"What's with that way of speaking?" I ask. "It seems like you just go a whole lot more nervous for some reason."

"Sh-shut up! Nervousness comes easily to me," the girl says. "Anyway, I wanted to ask a favor. Since you're gandalfar, you're familiar with weapons, right?"

"Wait, how do you know about gandalfar? I can name to amount of people who should know about it on one hand."

"Believe it or not, I'm a bit of an expert on the void lineage," the girl says, her triumphant smile returning. "I know practically all there is to know about it! I think I can recognize a gandalfar when I see one. So anyway, since you are gandalfar, would you mind helping me pick out a good weapon for my friend's birthday? She's a bit of a weapons nut, and I figured you'd maybe be able to help me out. In exchange, I can help you find a weapon more suited to your style."

"Um, thanks, but I've already picked up a new one," I say as I brandish the katana I picked up recently.

"And besides," Derflinger adds. "He's still got me!"

The girl chuckles. "Yeah, I know. Derflinger and Nietono no Shana really are kind of great on their own."

"Nie-what?"

"That katana's name is Nietono no Shana," the girl explains. "And I know you're fine as is, but still, I think I saw something around here you might like, so what do you say? Deal?"

I think for a bit then nod my head. "Deal. Let's find a weapon for..."

"My friend's name is Natalie," the girl tells me.

"Then let's find a weapon for Natalie."

We start digging through the piles of weapons in search of a good birthday present. I don't know where half of this came from or why it's here. Is this a plasma cutter?

"Oh, it is!" The girl exclaims as she grabs the gun from my hand and aims it. "Um... How does this work?"

It's probably out of ammo, so it most likely won't fire anyway.

"No, the holograms says three, see?"

*BANG*

We both scream and dive for cover on instinct when the gun accidentally discharges. We both come out of cover after about a minute and look at each other.

"No."

"Agreed."

"Let's keep looking and make sure we didn't kill anything important," I tell her.

We keep digging around a bit more. Hey now, what's this? I pull out a sword from a pile and examine it. It was mostly white with three holes in a line on the blade close to the hilt, which took the form of a circle.

"Isn't this the infinity blade?" I wonder aloud as I examine the sword.

"Oh! That'd be perfect!" the girl exclaims. "Natalie would love it! Would you mind handing it here please?"

I hand the infinity blade, the god slayer, over to the girl. I just handed over a really overpowered sword to a little girl. ... Am I an idiot?

"Probably," the girl responds. "Anyway, thanks, Nat'll love it. As thanks, follow me to that thing I mentioned."

The girl runs off in one direction, and I follow her. Eventually we reach yet another pile of weapons, virtually indistinguishable from the others. The girl puts down the infinity blade and starts digging around in the pile.

"I know I saw them here somewhere," she mutters to herself. "I was thinking about giving them to Nat, but they're a bit too far on the subtle side for her. Aha! Found them!"

The girl pulls out what looks like two bracers and tosses them to me. She looks at me, then motions for me to put them on, which I hesitantly do. What are these supposed to be? They look like normal leather bracers, with some metal plating on the top and bottom.

The girl looks about as confused as I feel. "They should be working," she mutters. "Um... Try flicking your wrist back," she advises.

Not like I have anything better to do. I flick my left wrist back, and then a blade pops out of the bracer.

"Whoa!" I cry in surprise.

Once the blade is extended, my gandalfar runes light up and start telling me how to use it.

"There it goes!" The girl cries happily. "I hope you like them. They don't really have a fancy name or anything, but most people simply refer to them as a hidden blade."

***Excerpt end***

Josh: Going all out with the Assassin's Creed, aren't you? Giving me two hidden blades, and the Eagle Vision?

Uncreative: When I first started brainstorming for this story, this scene, of which I've shown about a third, came into my head. It was mostly a joke, "Oh yeah, let's give him a hidden blade, that'll be fun." Then I thought to myself, "Hey, let's give him a hidden blade! That could actually work! Well, if I'm giving him a hidden blade I might as well pull him from the AC universe, so let's throw in Eagle Vision and a few assorted extras as well."

Ariana: Like the apple.

Uncreative: That was always nothing more then a joke. Anyway, please note that since I haven't written up to even the next chapter yet, that scene I just showed you is very likely to change a bit. In the meantime, I'm going to learn to be less lazy so I can get season 2 up quickly. In the mean time, Josh, Ariana, make yourself at home. There's pizza and sugar cookies somewhere so feel free to have some.

Josh: Pizza?

Ariana: Sugar cookies?

*whoosh*

Uncreative: Huh. If I had known mentioning that would have that kind of effect I would have done it a long time ago. Anyway, I'll see you all next time! This The Uncreative, signing off for now. We're done here.


	9. Bonus Chapter 1 v2

**Author Notes:**

Always nice to have a do over, wouldn't you say? Yeah, if you hadn't noticed the ".11" at the end of the chapter number, this is my second crack at this particular series of events. What made me do this over again? Conflicts with certain future plot points and a general feeling of dissatisfaction. I wasn't really happy with how it originally came out, and I'm a bit happier now. Could have been better, but whatever. I'd talk about the chapter, or what changed, but I don't really need too. It's self explanatory enough I suppose. Anyway, S = Saya, R = Rylan, E = Eve, and Se = Serah, in case you needed a legend of some sorts. Who are all these people? Eh, we'll get to that eventually. Enjoy the chapter!

**Bonus Chapter 1.11**

I mean, all that happened between Ragdorian Lake and the house visit was me and Louise getting a part time job at that inn, nothing really worth talking about.

(Saya: Oh come on! Please? I always love hearing about that part from Auntie Louise!)

(Rylan: … I kind of like hearing about it too.)

Okay, Saya I can understand a bit, but why you Rylan? Nothing happened whatsoever. Me and Louise got asked to spy on some people for Henrietta, we did that, we beat up some asshole and went on from there. There, that's the story.

(Eve: Don't be a jerk. Just tell them their story and then you can move on to the parts you wanted to talk about.)

I mean, I don't really want to talk about much of it whatsoever. Those two have probably heard about it multiple times before. At least until the whole "stop the crusade" thing that happened around two weeks ago. Don't think they're familiar with that.

(Serah: Yeah, but me and Eve don't know anything about any of that! Why do you think we asked about it to begin with?)

(E: Well, I was really just kind of curious, but whatever. If you want to skip it, fine, go right ahead.)

No. Now that you're saying that that just makes me want to talk about it more so get ready to hear about nothing important.

(S: Yes! Reverse psychology wins again!)

Where does a nine year old hear a phrase like that anyway?

(S: Rylan does it to me all the time. It's annoying.)

(R: I recall no such time I've done that.)

(S: Stupid brother. Anyway, continue your story Josh!)

Right. So, if I remember correctly it all started back when I was talking with Emily at the academy. We were talking about the recent "Henrietta and Zombie-Wales" thing. That was an annoying run of events, but what can you do?

"Sounds like that whole thing was pretty awful," Emily said.

"Well, that's one way of wording it," I responded. "I would have worded it differently."

"How so?"

"I'd say it sucked."

"How eloquent."

Emily didn't seem particularly surprised by the events I told her about. Obviously back then we were at a point in time where nothing seemed to surprise her. Once things got off the rails a bit I was able to enjoy that feeling. It happened so rarely that I savored every second of it.

"So how'd the princess take it?" Emily asked.

"Pretty well, all things considered," I responded. "I mean, she's spent the past few days locked up in her room crying her eyes out and refusing to see anyone or allow anyone else in."

"That's not taking it well," Emily said. "Like, the two aren't even remotely reconcilable."

(E: Gotta side with the maid on this one.)

(Se: Yeah, how'd you even think that that would be considered "taking it well?")

I am not a smart man, I thought Eve of all people would realize that. I was even stupider a year ago. I think it was a year ago. Let's see, it's been about two weeks since we finished all of our business and that was around… yeah, it's been a little over a year since I arrived in Halkegnia. Since then I've gotten smarter. At least, that's what I tell myself.

(R: If it makes you feel better, you don't seem like you gotten any stupider.)

…

Anyway, I said she was taking it well because isn't being sad that the person you loved is now dead a perfectly normal response?

(S: I suppose so. I mean, if Rylan died I don't know what I'd do.)

(R: The feeling's mutual. I don't know what I'd do if I died either.)

*THWACK*

(R: Ow!)

(S: Stupid brother.)

(R: If it makes _you_ feel any better, I was only joking. Probably should have said that before you hit me.)

I mean, that wasn't quite what I was going for since the relationship between Wales and Henrietta is a little different then you two.

(S: I mean, they were cousins weren't they? Me and Rylan are siblings so it's not that different, is it?)

(E: We can discuss the intricacies of human emotion later. Continue the story?)

Right. See, that point I brought up is something I brought up with Emily as well.

"I mean, yeah it's normal, but I don't think shutting yourself off from the world and doing nothing but crying is a very healthy way of dealing with it, you know?" Emily asked.

"You're certainly not wrong, I suppose," I admitted. "But be reasonable. If the person you reunited with the person you love, whom you thought dead, only for them to drop dead in front of you wouldn't you have a very similar reaction?"

Emily put a hand to her chin and pondered for a few minutes. If I didn't know her any better, I'd almost say the question caught her off guard. It probably didn't, but it certainly seemed that way.

"Fair enough," she said after careful consideration. "I can't reliably say I would do anything differently."

"Do _what_ differently, maid?"

That was when Louise decided to make her entrance for the day.

(R: Mom's very good at making entrances when she feels like it. She mostly leaves that job to Saya's mom though.)

(S: Mama makes the best entrances! She'll be like whoooosh, and buuurn and then there's fire everywhere and she looks so cool!)

(Se: That sounds like her, I'll say that.)

(E: Good to know she hasn't changed much at all in her near decade of motherhood.)

"Oh, Louise. What are you doing here this fine day?" I asked her.

"That's my question to you," she responded.

"Well me and Emily-" *Slap* "_Emi_, were having a conversation. Nothing really important, I suppose."

"Good, because we've got a mission to do!" Louise said, grabbing me by the arm. "Super important, can't wait, we have to go now."

"Now?"

"Now."

"Damn. Well, see you around Emi," I said with a wave as Louise dragged me off.

"Adios," she replied, returning the wave. "Make sure to tell me all about it when you get back."

Back then I remember thinking that she was probably responsible for the mission somehow. I still do, come to think of it. It wouldn't surprise me to one day find out that everything that happened during my stay in Halkegnia was all a plot masterminded by Emily. Then again, nothing surprises me anymore, so that wouldn't be saying much. Doesn't matter, on with the story.

Once Louise had successfully dragged me away a far enough distance, she stopped and took a deep breath.

"Okay," she said. "Josh, we've got a lot of work to do and this is a very secret mission from the princess herself so don't go blabbing about it."

"Oh, is she feeling better?"

"... She's been worse," Louise settled on. "She sent me this letter telling us about our current mission, so I'm not sure if she's left her room yet. Anyway, that's not important! Our job is to go out into the town, live amongst the commoners and report all their concerns to the Princess."

"So, we're spies basically?"

"Exactly. We're leaving as soon as possible, so pack your things we're going to head out in a few minutes."

Since my only belonging at the time was Derflinger, I didn't have much to worry about. Louise took forever since she didn't know what to bring, but she settled on a surprisingly light briefcase of clothes. Clothes that she couldn't even use because they would stand out far too much.

(E: Ouch, all that hard work for nothing.)

(Se: I don't know if picking out high profile clothes when you're on an undercover mission counts as hard work.)

So since she couldn't use those clothes, once we got into town, her first mission was to go buy some clothes that wouldn't set off red flags in everyone's mind just by walking past them. I'm sure the experience helped out in the long run, but that's neither here nor there.

(S: I don't get that phrase. Of course it's neither here nor there, it's words! Words can't be anywhere, they're just words!)

(R: I think it's just a way of saying that it doesn't matter.)

(S: Then just say it doesn't matter! Why do you need to make the sentence so much longer when all you need to do is sat "oh, it helped us out but that's not important right now." Doesn't make any sense. Not at all.)

Well, I didn't invent the phrase, so I certainly couldn't tell you anything about it. For now I'll acquiesce to your demands.

(S: ... Huh?)

(E: It means he'll change the sentence.)

(S: Oh, I get it. Why didn't he just say so?)

So the experience would undoubtedly help us in the future, but that's not important now. What is important is that that left me and Derflinger waiting at a fountain for Louise to finally arrive.

"What is taking her so long?" I asked. "It can't be that hard to find some decent clothes, can it?"

"Don't ask me, I'm a sword," Derflinger responded.

"Smartass. Besides, you're a talking, magic sword. You should know more then the average sword."

"I do! It's just that swords don't know much to begin with, see?"

"Worst sword ever."

"Hey! I'm the best sword you could ever ask for!" Derflinger complained. "Just because I'm not as worldly as most scholars doesn't make me useless! You'd be dead three time over if not for me!"

Since I couldn't argue that point due to him being completely right, I conceded and allowed him a moment of victory.

"Anyway, you better watch out partner, here comes the Missy," Derflinger warned me.

I looked around the courtyard and noticed Louise wandering around. She was wearing a bright and colorful dress full of ribbons. Brightly colored ribbons scream subtlety, after all. Eventually she noticed me and walked over. I noticed a few guys cursing me out as she approached and pretended not to know why.

"Well?" Louise asked, showing off the outfit. "What do you think? Too flashy?"

"Well it's adorable if that's what you're asking," I told her.

(E: I have this image of the event in my mind and I don't doubt that. It's probably an inaccurate picture since I've never seen the dress, but it's not hard to imagine her being adorable.)

Don't hit on my girlfriend, please.

(E: I wasn't-)

I know, I know, I'm just giving you a hard time. Anyway, your mental image probably isn't that far off. The dress she was wearing was pretty similar to what she was wearing when you two met.

(Se: Oh. How odd.)

No matter what she'll be telling you, she really did like that dress. It's no wonder she wanted a similar dress. Anyway.

"What do you mean, adorable?" Louise asked, slightly blushing.

"I figured it was a self explanatory statement. You look cute, is that better?"

Considering her blush got much redder, who knows if that was better.

"Stupid familiar," she muttered just loud enough for me to hear. "I knew I should have gotten something less flashy. And look at this outfit! It's got way too many ribbons!"

I counted three. One on each sleeve and one on the chest. Or in that general area, whatever. I pointed that out.

"I mean, it's more then I'm used to, if nothing else," Louise said as she reached into her pocket and pulled out another ribbon. "And it came with another one! What am I supposed to do with a fourth ribbon?"

I choose to keep my mouth shut. I made that choice, but I was unable to follow through on it.

"I think it's for if you want to tie your hair in a ponytail," I told her. My need to see Louise in a ponytail outweighed my desire to keep my mouth shut.

(E: The allure of the ponytail is terrifying indeed.)

(Se: Yea verily.)

(S: Oh! I get it!)

Get what?

(S: Eve, is that why you have your hair in a ponytail? Because Josh likes it?)

(E: E-excuse me?)

(R: Right on target. Good aim, Saya.)

(S: High five Rylan.)

***HIGH FIVE***

(E: Wha-whatever. You're both completely wrong. I just like ponytails, that's all. I think it looks nice.)

I mean, I do as well, but-

(E: But nothing.)

(Se: It's not nice to be in denial.)

(E: I should be telling that to you. Okay, fine. If you people will be like that, here. No more ponytail. Happy?)

...

(All: ...)

(E: What?)

(R: I'm kind of disappointed now.)

(E: What?)

(S: Yeah, you looked way better with the ponytail. You look kind of plain now.)

(Se: Some things in the universe just shouldn't be tampered with.)

(E: Tough. I'm not doing my hair up again. Josh, continue the story now.)

Perfect, I don't need to say anything about the situation. So like I was saying, Louise did her hair up in a ponytail using the ribbon that was provided for her and it looked fantastic, I told her as such and she got all embarrassed.

"Whatever," Louise said, pulling a small bag of coins out of her pocket. I believe she received those in the mail from the princess. "How many night's stay do you think this will get us?"

"I don't know, maybe a week in a decent hotel," I said, looking at the relative size of that bag.

"What about a five star hotel, what will this get us?" Louise asked.

"It'd get us laughed out of the building," I told her.

"That's not good enough!" Louise says. "I'm a noble, I can't be expected to sleep in a run down inn. You expect me to sleep in anything other then the finest furnishings?"

"Yes, only the finest beddings and toiletries for Misstress Louise," I told her.

"No, I mostly just need the fancy tea sets and doilies," Louise told me dryly.

"... I'm sorry, did you just reply with sarcasm?" I asked. I'm no stranger to the concept, but it's weird hearing Louise of all people be sarcastic.

(R: I'm surprisingly okay with it. Maybe because she doesn't use it that much.)

"Huh? Did I?" Louise asked.

"Certainly sounded like it," I replied. "I'm fine with it. Much better then your angry, yelling voice."

"Oh, so should I use my happy, yelling voice instead?" Louise asked before pausing for a second. "I suppose I was being a little sarcastic, wasn't I?"

"I like it. Sarcasm livens up conversations."

"It certainly makes lowering conversations to your level easier," Louise told me.

"Are you saying that I'm sarcastic?"

"Of course not. That would imply that you have a sense of humor."

"I totally have a sense of humor!"

"Ah! My apologies. Your sense of humor is so bad I simply assumed it had shriveled up and died like some kind of bug."

(Se: Ouch.)

Exactly. That hurt deeply. Though it did give me the idea that should I ever pursue a career as a writer, I'm totally putting Louise in it as a Kyon-like narrator. Assuming Emily hasn't beaten me to the punch on that one.

"Ignoring that," Louise said, "we need a way to make more money right away. Hmmm. Ah! Josh, how's your luck?"

"Pretty terrible, all things considered."

(E: coughcoughliarcoughcough.)

Shut your mouth.

(E: Just saying. I don't know many people with awful luck being as good at card games as you are.)

Fair point, I guess. Anyway, I'll cut to the chase, Louise tried her hand at gambling. It went as well as you're probably imagining.

(R: I want to say... 20 seconds?)

30 seconds.

(R: Oh that's not that bad. She usually does much worse when she makes bets.)

Ouch. I suppose Louise and bad luck must be synonymous. As such, we were left without a single coin to our name and I had to try my absolute hardest not to rub it in her face considering I warned her against it.

"So now what?" I asked. "Now we're broke and homeless."

"We're not homeless, we just don't have anywhere to stay tonight," Louise corrects.

"Right, they're two completely different things."

"Shut up, Josh."

(R: Now why does that sound familiar?)

(S: It doesn't. Not. At. All.)

"Excuse me," a new and unfamiliar voice said. "Are you two perhaps lost?"

(S: Scarron! It's Scarron, isn't it?)

Bingo.

(S: Nailed it! Rylan, high five!)

***HIGH FIVE***

(R: It was pretty easy to figure out, but good job Saya. You successfully figured out something obvious.)

(S: Don't ruin the moment.)

So, as Saya said, it was Scarron the large, muscular, kind of French man. I think he's a man, anyway.

(E: How can you not tell?)

(Se: Isn't that one of the most obvious things about someone?)

It's a touch difficult. Trust me. It's mostly due to his mannerisms and speech patterns, I suppose. I mean, the super tight spandex leaves little to the imagination.

(Se: My brain hurts now. I don't like thinking of muscular men in tiny spandex. You're going to have to pay for giving me that mental image!)

I'm not sorry.

"We're not lost," Louise said. "We're... Um..."

"We're lost," I confirmed.

"Well, yes, but you're not supposed to tell him that!" Louise hisses at me.

"Oh, how unfortunate!" Scarron cried. "And what might your names be?"

"My name is Louise Fr... Um... Just Louise," she said, cutting herself off at the proper time. "This is my... Friend, Joshua."

(E: She couldn't come up with anything better? If I were her I would have at least tried for some fake names or backstory. Like being siblings who got separated from their parents or something?)

(S & R: Ehem.)

(E: O-oh! Sorry, sorry! I didn't mean-)

(R: It's fine.)

(S: No harm, no foul.)

Well, the point is, Scarron offered us a chance to stay at his inn in exchange for us doing a bit of work there. It took a bit, but I was able to convince Louise to go along with it. We get a place to stay and we can work on our mission, it's perfect! And so, me and Louise began our stay at the inn. Oh, and he totally recognized our names. When we introduced ourselves to him he totally recognized us, but he tried to hide it.

(Se: The maid probably sent him a heads up about it! I wouldn't put it past her, she's a shifty one, she is.)

Speaking of introductions, me and Louise introduced ourselves to the rest of the crew. I'll skip those because nothing important happened. I mean, you could say Louise in that work outfit was important, but it was more eye candy then anything.

(E: Remember the company you're in.)

What do you mean?

(R: Ehem. Again.)

Ah! Shit. Sorry, I suppose it would be awkward hearing about that from someone like me.

(R: It's fine. Just a little weird to hear. Very weird to hear, actually.)

I'll try to refrain from comments like that. So anyway, Louise and I started our work there. We waited tables, collected tips, picked up feedback and just went about our business as usual. There was some weird tip race thing going, but I didn't pay attention. First place got this magical love-love dress or whatever. I have no need for a magical love-love dress.

(Se: What do you mean by "love-love?")

(S: The dress had an attract charm on it that caused people to become attracted to you. You could use it to score a whole bunch of tips.)

(E: Ah, I get it. Make a whole bunch of tips so you can make even more tips. Makes sense to me.)

Right. I don't have much need for money in Halkegnia, and even if I did I'm not wearing a dress to get it.

(R: How enviable.)

(S: Don't complain Rylan, you looked cute in that dress. It made me kind of angry actually considering you looked cuter then me.)

(R: That doesn't make me feel better.)

I'll refrain from asking.

(R: Thank you. I'll say it was all Saya's idea though.)

(S: W-well, that's true, but it needed to be done! For great justice!)

(R: I don't know of much justice that requires me to wear a dress. That doesn't matter. Just keep going, please.)

Riiiiiiiight. Anyway, the tip race was going just fine, Louise was in dead last and I enjoyed doing jackcrap. All I did was dishes, Louise did all the heavy lifting. I'd have helped, but I wasn't a waitress. Nor could I be. If for no other reason then I refuse to wear female clothing.

(R: A wise decision.)

(S: Shut up Rylan. It had to be done.)

(R: I mean, yeah, it did. If your definition of "had to be done" involves it solving a problem that it created. If that's the case then good job.)

(S: Shut up, shut up, shut up! I get it already, how many times do I need to apologize for it?)

(E: Serious Deja vu right there.)

(Se: Seriously.)

Anyway, the tip race came to a head when some random jackass decided to show up. He strutted in like he owned the place with his two bodyguards and snapped his fingers, signaling the rest of the patrons to get the hell out of there. The cafe emptied out instantly with everyone seemingly scrambling out instantly. So much for a good tip race, no one's even here! Scarron went up to the guy to greet him, so I suppose he was a regular.

"Why if it isn't Mister," *cough* "To what do I owe the please this day?"

(Se: Wait, what the hells was that?)

Hells?

(E: What, did you just forget his name or something?)

Of course not! I just don't think it mattered so I didn't say it.

(Se: Then what's his name?)

… Um.

(S: His name's Chulenne. I've heard the story from Papa enough to know that at least)

Right. I'll just call him what he is, a tax collecting bastard. So anyway, not knowing who he was at the time-

(R: Something that hasn't changed at all, I see.)

I decided to ask Jessica about him.

(E: Wait, who's Jessica?)

(S: I remember her! That's Siesta's cousin. Remember her Rylan?)

(R: Yes. She was nice.)

Did I not mention her? She's Scarron's daughter, she works at the inn. She was nice enough. I don't Louise liked her much, though that could just be a rivalry thing they set up during the tip race. Anyway, Jessica was more then happy enough to work part time as my exposition fairy for a small time.

"That's the tax collector," insert his name here. "He's a regular here who uses his position to score free meals and feel up the staff without remorse. After all, if any of us do anything to him then he can shut us down and we're all in trouble."

"Well. That sucks," I offered.

(E: A master of sympathy.)

What the hell else am I supposed to say? There isn't exactly a "Sorry you have to put up with the scum of the earth" hallmark card. I'm not good at making people feel better about themselves.

(Se: We've noticed. On quite a few occasions.)

Anyway, since he's developed such a wonderful reputation for being as nice a guy as he is, everyone was obviously lining up to serve the bastard. Fortunately or unfortunately, Louise didn't seem aware of his reputation though and stepped right up to provide her services. Fortunately or unfortunately, he didn't seem much aware of _her_ reputation either.

(E: Sparks flew?)

Like the goddamn Fourth of July. It was a rather wondrous thing, watching those two egos beat each other's face in. There was bickering, arguing, accusations of perversion in response to off color comments about Louise's body proportions. Eventually it got to a point where emotions boiled over enough to where the tax bastard called his guards on Louise.

"Foolish child," he said. "Don't you know who I am? I can have you put away for life you know."

"Louise?" I called out from my spot near the sink, washing dishes. "Is this the part where I come in?"

"Now would be nice, yes," she said calmly as the two guards approached her.

"Alright then," I said walking over to deal with the situation. "Gentlemen. What seems to be the problem here?"

"You know this girl?" Tax bastard asked me.

"We're familiar with each other," I told him. "It's my understanding that you two have reached a disagreement. Any way we could resolve this?"

"Hmmm," the tax bastard appeared to be thinking of how he could use this to his advantage. "Perhaps if this waitress provided a little extra service…"

"I'm sorry, what? I couldn't hear you over the sound of bones breaking," I told him. I slightly nudged the guy lying unconscious on the floor with my foot. "I take that back, they probably haven't broken anything. He's probably a bit sore though."

"E-eh? My guards?" he appeared to have finally noticed that his guards were unconscious. It wasn't that hard, all I needed to do was knock their heads together at a reasonable velocity. Dropped like stones. I filed the technique away under "to use later." I had a feeling I'd be doing that a lot. With his guards taken care of, the tax bastard was easy pickings. Louise managed to lift a few wallets worth of cash off him as recompense for being such an asshole. As such, victory in the tip race went to her, and life went on as usual. Some other stuff happened after that. I had a run in with Henrietta doing something where she ran away from the castle for some reason, something about trying to lure out some traitor or whatever, Louise and Agnis briefly had to make out to throw off some guards that almost noticed them, nothing really worth talking about.

(E: Remember the company you're in.)

What do you mean?

(R: Ehem. Yet again.)

… Oooooh, hearing that would be awkward, wouldn't it?

(R: Not as much as you'd think. I mean, I appreciate the concern Eve, but that image means absolutely nothing for me.)

(S: I'd be more weirded out if it did considering how much Auntie Louise kisses Mama. It happens a lot, so it doesn't really phase either of us.)

(E: Oh, so that's her preference. I mean, I shouldn't be surprised that she's not too keen on guys after that awful thing with Yuji. Kind of feel like I should have noticed that earlier though.)

(Se: All thing considered, yeah.)

Oh well. Anyway, that's about all that happened there. I don't think I missed anything. That good enough for everyone?

(S: I guess. I like it better when Papa tells the story.)

(R: I do too. We can't hope for the same quality from someone else, I suppose.)

Whatever. I don't even care. Now we can move on to the next part without any problems, right?

(E: Right.)

Awesome. Now, what's next?


	10. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: And we're back!**

The first thing I saw when I woke up, was the rapidly approaching floor.

"Fu-"

*THUD*

"Hell of a reintroduction to the world," I mutter as I pry myself off the floor. Okay, considering a bed is behind me, I'm going to assume I rolled off the bed and woke up just in time to realize that gravity's a bitch. Damn brain, choosing that moment to wake up. Also, considering Louise is also asleep in the bed and is wearing a nightdress of sorts I have no recollection of her ever having, I bet she woke up before me, got that thing from somewhere and knows more about what the hell's going on then I do.

Wait a second. I put a hand on my neck and feel for a pulse. And there is one! I'm alive! Now what was my first thought about the fact that I took on an army and survived? _... Really regretting not getting that Facebook account now. Wait, no. Even then I couldn't post about it because I don't have any internet here. Damn. Well, maybe I can convince someone to make some pizza to make up for it._ My priorities are as in order as ever I see.

Priorities or not, I should probably wake Louise up and have her explain everything in great detail.

"Hey, Louise, do you know what the hell's happening?" I ask her as I poke her cheek to see if she'll react.

"No, I completely understand," she murmurs in her sleep. "Kitties are really fuzzy."

... Can't argue with that.

"Oh? Already? O... Okay. G'bye kitties..." then she yawns, and I make my move.

"Louise, time to wake up," I say as I giver her a flick to the head.

Louise jackknifes into a sitting position, whirling her arms around and generally acting as if she's a robot being rebooted.

"Cat ears are sexy!"

Hell of a reboot.

Louise scans the room and then blushes when she notices me.

"Good morning?" I offer, trying to ignore her previously mentioned completely true statement.

"...You didn't hear that, did you?" she asks with what I can tell is intent to kill.

"...Hear what?"

"Good," Louise says, then she seems to realize something. "Wait, Josh! You're up!"

It took you this long to notice?

"Yeah, I'm up, and all I know is that the two of us take on an army of 70,000 and kind of win and then I wake up here. I was kind of hoping you could fill in the logic between those two events."

Louise ponders as if wondering where to begin. "Well, after we both passed out after the battle, your sword used some kind of ability it has to manipulate the magic it absorbed to move you like a puppet and take us into the forrest in hopes of finding that legendary fairy to help us."

Mental note: Kill Derflinger next time I see him. I don't care if he's a sword and thus technically an inanimate object, I'll find a way. We had this discussion already!

"Considering we're both alive and well, I guess it worked, right?" I ask.

Louise nods. "Right. Well, sort of. See, she's not a fairy, she's-"

"Oh, you're up?" A voice I've never heard before asks from behind me.

I turn around to see who's talking and see the supposed "fairy." I don't think I need to mention she was really and elf, like Emily suspected. The elf had long blond hair that came down past her shoulders, you could see the tips of her pointed ears coming out of her hair, and she had huge... Tracts of land. I give a silent prayer to any god of your choosing that Kirche wasn't here. Even she'd be jealous of these watermelons. Hmmm... Watermelons? I wonder what else everyone would be in regards to fruit. The elf's melon, Kirche'd be... I dunno, coconut? Emily would be apple? Momo would be peach? Louise would be lemon? Tabitha... Cherry? More importantly, why am I bothering with applying food based analogies to them and their chest sizes?

"Yeah, I just woke up," I tell melons. "May I inquire as to your name?" and allegiance while we're at it? Wait, never mind, a little applied Heightened Awareness and... Boom! Blue aura! **_Check Louise! You can never be too sure!_**I can practically hear my inner paranoia that is in no way sentient yell at me. A quick glance shows Louise as blue and friendly as well. Satisfied, me? And yes, I am, if I must ask.

"My name is Tiffania, though please call me Tifa," she tells me with a smile and a small bow. "Nice to meet you."

"Nice to meet you too Tifa," I say before turning to Louise. "And she's the one who nursed us back to health?"

Louise opens her mouth, but is cut off by Tifa. "I did help Louise, but she insisted on making sure you were all right," Tifa says with a smile.

Louise starts blushing but says nothing.

"Really Louise? So that's how it is?"

Tifa smiles a bright smile that honestly reminds me of a child's in the best way possible. It seemed completely innocent and just full of cheer.

"From the second she woke up Louise insisted on taking care of you! I asked her to rest because she might not have been fully healed but she insisted. 'He's my boyfriend so I should be the one to take care of him!' were her words, I believe."

Louise is blushing even more, and you know what? I think even I'm starting to redden.

"I d-didn't say that!" Louise yells while whirling her arms.

Tifa seems genuinely confused. "Really? But I thought-"

"W-wrong!" Louise says. "I p-probably said the _boy_'s my _familiar_ and that's why I should take care of him! That's it! You're mind just heard 'boy' and 'f-' and automatically and incorrectly filled in the gaps wrong!"

Doing things wrong incorrectly is often a cause for concern.

"Really?" Tifa asks. "I apologize for my mistake."

"Not your fault," I remark. "Louise is pretty much a queen of mixed messages."

"And what's that supposed to-"

"Well, please feel free to look around," Tifa says with a smile while completely ignoring Louise before stepping back out.

Then there's sort of an awkward silence which I let happen while Louise fumes a bit. Eventually...

"So did I miss anything important while I was out?" I ask Louise. "Has the apocalypse happened yet? I'd hate to have slept through that."

"Nothing of that caliber yet," Louise tells me, "But I guess you might have missed a thing or two."

Here's the gist of it: Gallia betrayed Albion, blew the shit out of them, that emperor dude who's name I've forgotten is dead and the war has ended! I predict another two months before the next war. Short reaction: Yay. Long reaction: Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay.

"So now what?" I ask as I stretch out a bit. Turns out being asleep for a few weeks or so can really do a number on your back. "I mean, we're both alive, we fought off an army, can we go home? I'm honestly starting to miss that pile of hay I occasionally slept on."

"I don't know," Louise says. "I was kind of focused on making sure you were okay, and didn't think how to get back to the academy. I don't exactly have the money to get us back home from here. I guess I could ask Tiffania for some gold, but she needs it to keep the orphanage running."

"Well, we're in reasonably good standing with the princess, right? Why not just send her a letter asking for help getting a ride back to the academy?"

Louise's face lights up. "Why didn't I think of that! Of course the princess will help us get back! I'll get started on a letter right away!"

Louise jumps up off the bed and makes a rush for the door, forgetting both her state of current pajama-like attire and the fact that I'm still in the room. The second one was more important as she somehow managed to ignore my existence until the point where she ran into me and knocked us both onto the floor. Second time I've hit the floor today. At least the company's better.

It takes approximately three seconds for the current position of everything and turn of events to register in Louise's head. That is, it took about three seconds for Louise to realize we were both on the floor with her on top of me. After that it only took about a millisecond for her to hit maximum embarrassment overload. Hmm... What's the word I'm looking for?

"Louise, you apparently became slightly clumsier in the past few weeks. Did I miss something?" trying to remain clear headed.

Louise responds by combat rolling off to the side and off of me. She stands back up and starts walking towards the door.

"You're going out dressed like that?" I ask. "You seem to have gotten... What's the word, bolder? If you're going out dressed in next to nothing." Of course maybe Louise was always an exhibitionist and I never realized it. Considering the dreams she has on occasion, I wouldn't be surprised if she was more perverted then she let on.

Louise looks down and notices what she's wearing. That is to say, a sleeveless, semi-translucent green night dress and nothing else. Not even shoes. If you're wondering, I can only tell Louise isn't wearing anything else under that because of that quirk of her's where she can't sleep if she's wearing underwear. The morning I found out that quirk apparently wasn't pleasant for either of us, especially me. I say apparently, because here's my memory of that event. My alarm clock that day was a fist to my face that knocked me clear across the room. After seeing Louise on the bed frothing with rage and embarrassment and with an outstretched fist, I proceeded to ask what I did to deserve that pleasant wake up call. After stammering over herself for a while, Louise got dressed and stormed out to the bathroom to cool her head. I dunno, by splashing some water on herself or something. After coming back, she "calmly" berated me for taking advantage of her little sleeping problem. After seeing me be confused as hell and realizing I didn't do whatever it was on purpose, the conversation turned very awkward. Fun times all around.

Back in the present day, Louise blushes and opens her mouth to do what I assume is order me out so she can change without showing me everything, but I've already stepped out expecting such a thing.

"Alright, let's check out this so called orphanage," I say to myself. "What's the best way to do that? ... Where's the nearest and tallest tree?"

I snoop around a bit and find a suitable tree. Tall, sturdy, and with tons of branch to use as hand and foot holds. A'ight, let's get some morning exercise.

After climbing as high as the tree would let me, I scoped the area out. It really wasn't that big, just a few buildings here or there. Can't really blame it for not being huge, considering it looks like Tiffania is the only one running it. And it's in the middle of a forrest so I'm happy with it no matter what. Climbing trees is always a good time. Well, I don't see and bushes or hay bales that look soft enough to cushion a fall from upwards of 100 feet, so let's work our way down slowly. One branch. At. A time. Damn, I really wish I had that gravity shifting cat that always followed Kat around. Hell, I'd take Raven's... Raven, for those gravity shifting powers and the ability to nullify fall damage. It'd suck to fall and break every single bone in my body after just waking up from being on the brink of death.

Okay, last branch, annnnnnd dismount! Perfect 20 point landing!

"Whoa," I hear behind me. I turn around and see a small group of kids looking at me in what I can only hope is amazement. They didn't look old, maybe 4, 5, the oldest ones looked 8. But I can't estimate a person's age to save anyone's life so they could be 37 for all I know.

"Did you just fall out of the tree?" One of them, a girl with short blonde hair, asks me.

"Well, not fall, but I did jump out of a tree," I explain.

"Why did you jump out of the tree?" another, a boy with shortish brown hair, asks.

"Because I was in the tree and needed a quick way down."

"Why were you in the tree?"

Why do kids ask so many questions? Because they're awesome, that's why. Kids, not questions. I've always loved how kids feel the need to question everything. It's probably one of their most endearing traits. I wonder if I was like that. My memories of me aged 9 and younger are a bit fuzzy.

"I was in the tree because I was climbing it." One of them opens her mouth, but I beat them to the punch. "I was climbing the tree because I wanted to get to the top, and I wanted to get to the top so I could get a good view of this entire place. That and it's fun."

"Did you get to the top of the tree?" A small boy asks.

"Stupid!" The blonde girl berates him. "That tree's too tall! It's not possible-"

"Actually I did, and it was easy," I interrupt. Ah, I shouldn't do that. Maybe I'm giving myself too much credit by assuming these kids would ever try and copy me, but what if they start interrupting people too? That wouldn't exactly be good.

The blonde girl's eyes widen. I notice they're a shade of green. "No way."

"Yeah. Want me to prove it?"

Some of the kids cheer out. Yeah! Let's see! Climb! I like trees! Things like that. The girl seems more surprised then anything. She looks like she kind of expected me to say I could climb the tree, but then make some kind of excuse to get out of it. Well, no time for that, time to climb some trees!

As the kids watch, I work my way back up the tree. I think it's because I've stretched out a bit and loosened up from my nap, but climbing the tree was actually easier this time. After I get to the highest point of the tree, I look down at the group. I can't quite tell what their expressions are from here, but their body language appears to indicate excitement. Awesome, I'm now a children's entertainer. I should start coming up with acts other then "Climb tall object." I think they'd get bored of that pretty quickly.

Hmmm... I'm contemplating yelling something down to them like, "Okay, I'm coming down now!" But I have the feeling if I do that then I'm sealing my fate and will fall and hit every branch on the way down. And probably break every bone in my body. That's bad for business.

Wordlessly, I make my way down, and once again dismount and 20 point landing in front of the children who then burst into cheers.

"That was awesome!"

"Yeah! I never thought anybody could climb a tree that big!"

_I never thought kids could be so enthused about someone climbing a tree!_

Everyone's cheering, except the girl. She looks really angry. I contemplate asking what's wrong, but then she walks up to me and kicks me in the shin. Hard. Crap, my one weakness! Little girls kicking me below the waist!

"Stupid!" she yells at me. "What if you fell? You could have been seriously hurt!"

Oh my god, Louise cloned herself into a small blonde child. Someone, help. Please.

One of the boys puts his hands behind his head as if he's just going through the motions and says in a perfectly relaxed tone, "Geez Yunica, were you worried about him?"

The little blonde girl, Yunica, actually blushes a little. "Gim! I don't want big sis Tifa and big sis Louise's efforts helping him go to waste!"

... Big sis Louise? I mean, I get the Tifa part, she's been raising the kids, but big sis Louise? And I can't even get a big bro Josh? That... Actually kind of depresses me.

"But he can do things like that on his own," Gim remarks. "Don't you remember big sis Louise's stories?"

Note: ask later. Apparently the other kids can see that Yunica and Gim are going to have an argument of sorts (must happen on a schedule) as they slowly back away, leaving me with the two arguing 8 year olds.

"So what if he can handle himself?" Yunica asks. "What if big sis Tifa was climbing that tree? Wouldn't you be worried?"

"Of c-course I'd be worried about big sis Tifa!" Gim remarks, slightly red faced. "B-but would she ever climb a tree or do something stupid like that if she didn't think she could?"

Let's ignore the fact that you called what I did stupid.

"If I may interrupt," I throw in. "Let's try and keep things civil. I climbed a really tall tree. I could have fallen but I didn't, I am okay, and Tifa will probably not climb trees. Does the argument need to continue any longer?"

Silence. Then Yunica kicks me in the shin.

"Ow!"

"Just don't do stupid stuff again," Yunica says before turning and walking away.

"I don't get it," I remark.

"Me neither," Gim remarks. "Girls are confusing."

"Glad we can come to an agreement on that point."

Well, this conversation's over and that means I can go ask Louise now about some stuff instead of putting it off and eventually forgetting about it. That makes things easier, get the info straight from the source ASAP. Now where is she?

After wandering around a bit, I had the bright idea to go back into the building where I first exited this morning. Great job, me. So I went inside and found Louise sitting on the bed in her academy uniform.

"Josh! Where have you been?" she asks me.

"Well, funny story about that."

Then I told Louise about what happened. Oh, and she had pretty much exactly the same reaction Yunica did to the tree climbing thing. _You're an idiot! You could have seriously hurt yourself! Do you have a death wish of some kind?_ Things like that.

"So you're wondering why Yunica acted like that?" Louise asks.

"What? Oh! Yeah! Forgot about that. I was kind of focused on the "big sis" and "stories" part."

Louise gives me a look that I swear screams "You are the biggest idiot ever," but then she sighs in resignation to my idiocy.

"Well, it started a little after I woke up," Louise began. "After I had decided to take a quick break from making sure you were alright, one of the kids came up to me. It's been a few weeks so I can't exactly remember which one of the kids, but after asking if you were going to be okay, they asked how we wound up in our situation."

"What, people don't wind up dying on the orphanage's doorstep more often?"

"I was just as surprised as you were to find that out. Anyway, I decided to be truthful and explain how we got into our situation. Some of the other kids heard me talking and joined in. A few asked how we met so I started telling them stories of what we've done since that summoning ritual."

"And how far are you along in that regard?"

"Caught up to the present."

"Darn, that means no more stories." I put a hand to my chin and think. "I got it!" I say with a snap of my fingers. "I've got some stories. They're fiction and I might have to change a few details to fit with this world's viewpoints on stuff, but I'm sure they'll eat them up."

"Did you hear a word I said?" Louise asks angrily.

"Huh. What? You were talking? Sorry, I was thinking."

"That's a shock," Louise says dryly.

"Ouch. Anyway, what did you say?"

"... Never mind. I'm sure you can figure it your on your own."

Louise seems pissy for some reason. Well, let's let her cool off and go do something to pass the ti- wait a second. My brain just registered that failed spot check from a while ago. Try again. Spot check successful! Observe my left hand and... nothing's wrong with it. Why is nothing wrong with it?!

"Louise, you mentioned once a long time ago that the only way to stop being a familiar was for either the master or the familiar to die right?"

Louise looks confused. "Um... Yeah. Why?"

"So then who's dead, you or me?" I say as I show her my left hand clear of those fancy runes.

"What! What happened to the runes?!"

"Soooo I'm not a familiar anymore because-"

"Either partner's or the missy's heart stopped back then."

"Crap! When the hell did you get in here Derflinger?"

"The elf brought me in while you were out climbing trees," the sword tells me. "Anyway, like I said, either you or the missy was so close to death that the contract thought you did die, so it ended."

Well that's stupid. Almighty magic can't even tell the difference between a corpse and a not-corpse?

"Well, what does Louise do without a familiar?" I ask.

Louise actually hesitates for a second. "I could always just summon another one but..."

"But... What?" I ask.

"... Nothing," Louise says. "We'll find a way around it and try to get the contract between us set back up."

So? Can't we just summon someone else and get some backup? I could always go for a combat in arms. Hell, maybe it'd be someone I know.

"Well, see if you can come up with anything," I tell her. "Worst comes to worst just summon a new one."

This conversation's over, I think. I guess I'll go talk to Tiffania or something. It would probably be nice to learn about the elves here. With my objective set, I walk out of the building... Unnecessary dramatic pause... And bumped into Yunica who looked like she was either thinking of entering, or eavesdropping.

"Um... Yunica, was it?" I ask to confirm. "Mind saying what you were doing here?"

Yunica's face slightly reddens. "Nothing," she says defensively. "I didn't come to..." her voice trails off a bit rendering me unable to tell what she's saying but I have no way of indicating that other then directly saying it, which is annoying to me.

"Sorry, I didn't catch that. What didn't you come to do?"

She responds by kicking me in the shin again. Crap! That's like, three shin kicks in like 20 minutes! That is annoying as hell!

"Nothing!" Then she turns and runs off into the forest. I'd say that's a bad idea, but she's probably been here longer then I have, so I'm sure she knows better then to do or go somewhere stupid.

Hmmm... Then again she is, what, eight years old? While most kids I've met are smarter then I first gave them credit for, they can be kind of naive at times, can't they? I kind of feel like a jerk for saying this, but let's just let her be. I'm sure she'll be fine.

...

I really want to climb a tree. I know I should go get an info dump from Tifa about elves and stuff like that, because I'm sure she's important this story arc, but prior to today, the last time I climbed anything was when I was tailing Fouquet, Wardes and the other chick. I feel like I need to make up for lost time. Besides, it's easier to think while climbing. Exposition can wait till evening, right?

***Scene Break***

Climbing really relaxes me. Leaping from handhold to handhold, climbing around, it's just zen like. It frees up your mind to think about whatever flows in. Unless you fall, break your neck and die, but death's a surprisingly common potential in things I do. Don't really know why. It's still kind of weird. I mean, I remember that she always-

"Hey! What do you think you're doing?"

Oh? That sounds interesting. Just monkey my way around the trees here and there and... What the hell. I mean... *sigh*

Okay, it was Yunica confronting two thug looking guys. They looked maybe 20 or 30, looked like they could rip her in half, and she was busy looking angry and yelling at them at the top of her lungs. I know I mentioned they looked like they could, but I should probably point out they also look like they _were_ going to rip her in half any second. Maybe I gave her too much credit in assuming she wouldn't get in trouble.

You know, I'm not surprised. She and Gim are the only two kids here whose name I actually know, and of the two, Yunica's the only one I could actually describe if asked too. I doubt she'll have much to do in the grand scheme of things, but for a sort of breather arc before we head back to the academy, she's bound to at least give something to do.

Anyway, despite yelling at the top of her 8 year old lungs, I can't quite make out what she's yelling.

Let's pause for a minute. I could easily turn on Heightened super sense whatever and instantly get a read of sorts on everything, but that just won't do on it's own. I need some kind of short catch phrase to say whenever I activate. It's practically a rule. I guess I'll just have to try out various ones until I settle on something good.

HA Engage. I don't think I need to tell you that the thugs were clearly bad guys. Yunica was also had a sort of blue outline, which I'm taking to mean unimportant, but friendly character. Looking at the two thugs, I can make out their weaponry. The one closest to Yunica is armed with naught but an admittedly scary looking knife/dagger thing. The second guy, who's standing behind is much less armed, only a hunting knife of sorts and a bow and arrow. It was a pretty nice, if standard looking bow and arrow. Even if I took archery a bit back home, I'm not too knowledgeable about the subject. My lack of gandalfer familiar status probably won't help me in that regard.

Apparently the two thugs are getting fed up with Yunica, because they're starting to reach for the weapons with an annoyed look on their faces. Yunica decides to help out by kicking one of them in the shin. everything. Now is not the time for something like that! The guys are now clearly furious and reaching for their weapons. They can't really be considering killing an 8 year old, are they? Them pulling out their weaponry, specifically the dagger for the first and the bow for the second, and Yunica going silent tells me yes. Should I help?

**Option 1: YES YOU IDIOT!**

***Click* - Option 2: Yes**

I like the second option better. Of course, I can't do much from up here in a tree. Let's just slowly make our way downwards and ignore the fact that they're slowly approaching the slowly backing away Yunica. Okay, safe drop distance reached.

Having reached the minimum required safe distance, I proceed to jump off the tree and land right between the thugs and Yunica.

"Hell yeah! That was awesome!" I can't help but say.

"J-Joshua?" Yunica says.

"And who the hell are you supposed to be?" Thug 1 asks, putting away his knife for now. Why? Do you think now everything'll be fine because one guy just dropped from the sky? That's stupid.

"Who am I? Just who the hell do you think I am?" I ask in retaliation, but not with as much ham as I would have liked.

"A complete idiot," Thug 2 says, his bow also put away.

"I asked who you think I am, not who your partner is," then I give a sympathetic look to thug 1. "I'm sorry sir, your lover thinks you're an idiot."

That set both of them off.

"You little fu-"

"Hey! Watch it! There's a kid here. Didn't your mother ever stuff soap in your mouth for that language? Speaking of which, why are you trying to hurt this kid?"

"She's annoying us," Thug 1 says.

"Okay, good," I say while nodding. "Yunica, why are you supposedly annoying these men?"

"They're hunting!" She says while using me as a human shield to protect herself from them. "They were trying to kill the animals!"

"Good. Please explain why this is bad to the men."

"Why would you want to hurt animals?" Yunica asks them. "Animals never did anything wrong!"

Aww, she's still in the "Every animal is the most adorable thing ever," mindset. Cute.

"So you're saying I should beat these guys up for trying to hurt the animals and then trying to hurt you?"

The two men laugh. "You honestly think you can do that? You're just a kid!"

"It's nothing personal, but you two would be better off gone at this rate, so let us take care of that. So just sit back and don't fight it. Nothing you can do about it anyway," Thug 2 says.

**_!_**

"Yunica, go get Louise or Tifania. Now."

"B-but-"

"Now!"

Yunica looks briefly startled, but turns and runs off to the orphanage.

"Ah, trying to play the hero?" The first thug asks.

"I suppose we can spend some time with y-"

The second thug doesn't get a chance to finish. I took the initiative and punched him in his face, sending him backwards. The first thug immediately pulls his knife back out and slashes at me. A quick step back sends the knife through nothing but air. I take the opportunity to grab the guy's wrist and apply enough pressure to get him to loose his grip on it. I then have his forehead meet my own to disorient him and I force the knife out of his hand.

I hear a slight sound and turn to see the second thug, having gotten back up, notch an arrow into his bow and aim it at me. He releases the arrow and it goes flying at me. There's a brief sound as the arrow bounces off of the blade of the knife I used to deflect it. The first thug, having recovered, advances and tries to punch me. I respond by stepping back, dodging the blow, then stepping forward and plunging the knife into his side. He cries out in pain and tries to pull the knife out. The archer's weapon may not be suited for close quarters combat, but a weapon's a weapon, making him a higher priority target. Even if the first one will be armed again soon, that wound should slow him down too much to be a threat.

The archer notches another arrow, but before he can fire, I'm already right in front of him. He panics and tries to fire, but I gently push the bow towards a tree, which is then shot with an arrow. I strike the archer in the stomach with my knee, and rip the cheap, wooden bow from his hands. I then use it as a blunt instrument and strike him over the head with enough force that the bow shatters in two. Noticing that he's still conscious, but most likely in no shape to fight, I grab two arrows from his quiver. The first goes directly to his knee, the second to his shoulder. Then I push him down to the ground, where he doesn't get back up. He'll more likely then not live, but he's done for now, I think.

_!_

There's the sickening sound of a knife piecing through flesh. The first thug looks surprised and scared, and his eyes flitter between looking me in the eye, and looking at my left hand, with the knife through it.

"Wha-"

"Surprised? You're about as stealthy as a medieval knight in full armor. You're faster then one though. I almost didn't have enough time to turn and catch it."

"C-catch? The knife's impaled your hand!"

I then slide my hand backwards to get it off the now blood red knife. I then use that same hand to grab the man's wrist, and direct the knife towards him, until the sharpened edge touches his throat.

"Are you going to kill me?"

"Most likely, but it depends on your responses from here on out. Weren't you two about to kill me and an innocent little girl?"

"I thought we said nothing personal? It's just that you two were annoying us!"

I press the knife against his throat a little more.

"And that's an acceptable excuse? We were annoying you?"

"And what's your excuse for killing me and almost killing my friend?"

"Self defense. Unlike your's, that one holds up as an excuse."

"Does it? Just slit my throat and be done with it," he declares indignantly.

"As you wish. Rest in peace."

"Joshua! Back up!"

I instinctively push the guy to the forward and roll to the side just in time to see a sort of magic blast sweep over the two thugs.

I look in the general direction of the blast of sorts and see Tifa holding a wand pointed at the two thugs.

"Tifa? When'd you get here?"

Before she can answer, another head pops out from behind her.

"Big bro!" Yunica cries as she runs forward and hugs me.

"Big bro?"

Yunica pouts. "Didn't you complain about how Big sis Louise and big sis Tifa were called that, but you were never big bro?"

I vocalized that thought? I never realized. Whoops.

"Well, thanks for listening to me."

Yunica smiles, then screams in horror.

"Ah! What is it? Are we being attacked or something?"

"B-big bro! You're hand's bleeding!" Yunica yells in horror.

"Is it?" I take a look at me left hand, and nearly recoil in terror. "My hand has a hole in it!" Medic! "I don't know whether to think that's terrifying or awesome!"

Tifa's eyes widen when she sees the hole in my hand. "H-hold on!" she cries out. "We need to stop the bleeding! think I have some bandages with me."

One impromptu medical procedure later, my hand was now bleeding significantly less. Tifa seems slightly calmer, but still in a panicked state.

"T-that should hold it, but we should get you to a water mage as soon as possible," Tifa says.

"Um... Yeah, that'd probably be nice. Fix the stab wound and whatnot. What do we do about these nice gentlemen?" I ask, gesturing to the two thugs who're unconscious on the ground.

Tifa thinks. "The memory removal spell I used on them should keep them from remembering anything from before they entered this forrest, so if they wake up, they'll likely go back home after realizing they don't remember anything."

"Right. Now, what about that knife wound the one guy has and the arrows in the other one?"

Tifa seems confused, then she notices the thug's injuries. "Wh-what happened here?"

"Big bro beat them up so they wouldn't hurt me!" Yunica declares.

"What!" Tifa declares shocked.

"Um... Yeah, sure," I just throw out there. "Tifa, how did you heal me and Louise?"

"M-my mother gave me a ring and-"

"Sorry to interrupt, but could you still use that ring?"

Tifa thinks, then her face lights up. "Ye-yes! It should still have enough energy to heal them and you!"

Yay! No more hole in hand! It would have made climbing significantly harder.

***Scene Break***

After the mass healing, which sadly drained the ring of the rest of its magic, Tifa, Yunica and I went back to the orphanage. I'll keep what we talked about to a minimum as much as possible. In a nutshell, Tifa's only half elf, her mother was an elf and her dad was some kind of archduke, or something. Her mother was killed, but she used the memory deleting spell to protect herself. Taking into account the odd effects of her spell and royal lineage (which I think was occasionally mentioned as being a pre requisite of some kind) I deduced that Tifa might be a void mage. She denied it vehemently. After all, how could she, a simple orphanage owner be a legend! I was still able to convince her to go talk to Louise and Derflinger about it.

After we got back, Tifa went to go check on some of the other kids, leaving me with alone with Yunica. An awkward silence formed almost immediately.

"... Thanks," Yunica says, a blush on her face.

"For?"

"For saving me!" she yells at me. "Those two would have killed me!"

"That's a rather dark way of thinking for a kid, isn't it?"

"It's true!" Yunica insists. "I saw them draw their weapons and didn't know what to do. Then you dropped in from nowhere, trying to be all cool, and failing miserably."

"Trying? Failed? Can't I get a little more credit?"

"Nope!" Yunica says with a bright smile.

"Just a little? Please?"

"Nope! Sorry big bro!" Then Yunica's expression becomes much sadder. "S-sorry big bro."

"What's with the change in attitude?"

"Because of me you got really hurt, didn't you? It's my fault you- Wh-what are you doing!" she asks as I start poking her in the cheek.

"What's with all this?" I ask. "I thought you'd have realized I tend to get hurt a lot. It's not your fault!"

"Your hand had a hole in it!" Yunica says. "If you hadn't had to fight them off you wouldn't have been in danger."

"I'm sure one of these days I would have accidentally impaled my hand on something anyway. It was kind of an inevitability, I believe."

"You're just saying that to make me feel better, aren't you?" Yunica asks.

"Maybe, maybe not. Either way, this has been a long day, and I kind of feel like taking a nap. Night Yunica."

"Um... Yunica's kind of a long name, isn't it?" _No longer then my name._ "You can just call me Yu, or Yuca, if you want."

"Understood Yuca. Coincidentally, I prefer Josh, to Joshua."

"Got it, big bro!"

Not that it matters when that's apparently my new name. Yuca appears to realize something, because she blushes a little.

"Um... I can call you big bro, right?"

"Have I said no to it at any point since you started calling me that?"

Yuca looks confused. "So..."

"That's a yes."

Yuca smiles and throws her arms around me in a hug. "Thanks big bro!"

"It's fine. Anyway, it was fun talking with you, I'll make sure to do it again tomorrow, but I'm going to sleep for now."

"You promise we'll talk tomorrow?" Yuca asks.

"I promise," I say and give an affectionate patting of the head for good measure, causing her to blush.

"See you tomorrow big bro!" Yuca says with a smile before turning and running off.

Well, I better do what I keep saying I'm going to. I just hope Louise isn't in that room. It's going to be hell to explain all that red in my sleeve. Let's just not mention it and hope it doesn't come up. In semi unrelated, I'm not entirely sure what to make of Yuca. I mean, she seams nice, but I don't know what to do about this, I've never had a younger sister before.

**_*Giggle* Big bro's a liar!_**

Shut up Joc. Just, shut up.

***Scene Break***

After that, nothing really happened much. Just some stuff that wouldn't be out of place in your average slice of life anime. Well, minus the mage, half-elf and talking sword. Things went on normally. Chores were done, people talked, and trees were climbed. The usual. I probably should mention that since Louise had kind of run out, story time duty was given to me. It went... Better then suspected.

"Sinon decided even if Hecate didn't have it's scope anymore, she still needed to at least try and help Kirito, so she gets ready to take the shot anyway. She does her best to line it up using nothing but her own eyesight, and then she pulls the trigger. Despite her technical handicap, her bullet still manages to hit Death Gun's... Gun, directly in it's weak point, causing it to explode and never be able to be used again."

"Whoa! Sinon's so cool!" the kids cheered out.

Even in worlds where they don't exist, kids love video games. Who would've thought? Louise objected during the first parts of the story, something about how telling kids about a bunch of people like them were trapped in a kill or be killed game could have adverse effects or something, but she still sat in to hear the story. She didn't go very long before she got as into it as the kids did. Had she been raised on Earth, Louise'd probably be huge into video games. I can just feel it.

Speaking of Louise, she did send that letter to the princess at some point. Louise said that if everything goes well, it'd take a few days for the letter to reach the princess, then maybe another week or two for a ship to come and pick us up, assuming she does get to send one. I'm sure we'll be fine.

Also, Tifa did talk to Louise, and Derflinger, which I didn't expect, and they're both convinced Tifa's a void mage. Tifa herself still isn't as sure, but she's willing to believe us which is nice.

I kind of wish more stuff happened so that I could describe it but nothing did. It was just sort of business as usual. It was kind of boring, to be honest.

One evening I went out for some exercise (read: Go climb some more trees because its fun as hell). After a bit of that, Louise showed up.

"Josh! What are you doing out here?" she asked me.

"Climbing trees because its fun," I say, anticipating her next question to have been "Why are you climbing trees?"

"Well stop! What if you fall and severely hurt yourself?" Louise asks. "Get down here this instant!"

"Killjoy," I mutter as I head for ground level. "Louise, if I can't climb trees, what am I supposed to do for exercise?"

"Maybe I can help with that," says mysterious voice from somewhere other then here.

"Yes! A new challenger approaches!" I say while pointing at the woods. "Come and show yourself!"

Then a woman pops into view, visibly confused. Also, it was the woman I saw with Wardes and Fouquet a while back. I'm not surprised, I had a feeling we'd probably bump into each other eventually.

"New challenger?" she asks. "What are you babbling about?"

"Forgive him, he gets like that at times," Louise says.

"Hey. What's... That?" I ask, giving a vague gesture.

"I thought you would have known what a woman is," Louise says dryly.

"No that... Thing on her face."

"What? There's something on my face? Purple lady asks.

Instead of answering, I walk up to her and use my hand to lift up her bangs.

"These things! What the hell is this!"

"Those runes! You're a void familiar like Josh was!" Louise exclaims.

Purple lady slaps my hand away and takes a step back. "Yes! I am Myoznitnirn-

"Is that your name?" I ask.

"What? No, its-"

"Josh, who would be stupid enough to name their daughter Myoznitnirn?" Louise asks me. "I'll admit, there are some pretty stupid names out there, but I doubt anyone's parents are _that_ inherently cruel."

"Myoznitnirn is the name of the familiar class I am!" Myoznitnirn shouts at us. "I'm not telling you my name because I don't want to, nor is there a need for it."

"Well that's stupid. Do you see me going around saying, 'Hi, I'm Gandalfar, nice to meet you!' No, because it's stupid!"

"And inaccurate," Louise points out.

"Anyway," Myoznitnirn tries to continue.

"Hey, do you have a nickname?" I ask. "Myoznitnirn is a little long. Maybe Myoz? How does that work Myoz?"

"Would you just-"

"I don't think Myoz likes it," Louise points out.

"Myoznitnirn, what's your name?"

"Sheffield. No! Wait!"

"Sheffield?" I ask. "That's not a bad name."

"There. She's Sheffield now. It's much better then Myoznitnirn," Louise points out.

"But wait. Sheffield's a void familiar, which means she has a void master, right?" I point out.

Sheffield sighs. "What do you think?"

"Louise, how many void familiars are there?" I ask.

Louise ponders, so Sheffield answers in her stead. "Four total. Gandalfar, master of weapons, Vindalfar, master of beasts, Myoznitnirn, master of magical objects, and no one knows the fourth one except that it exists."

"Thank you," Louise says.

"Don't mention it," Sheffield replies glumly.

"So in that case that's two," (_Well one, technically_) "Void familiars accounted for, with three masters."

"You know the third void mage?" Sheffield asks, visibly and utterly confused.

"Not important now," I say quickly. "Okay, if there are four familiars, that means there are only four void masters. In order for this story arc to be fair, it'd need to be 2v2. Louise and the other void mage makes one team, and am I correct in assuming that you were sent by your master to dispose of or otherwise exterminate or delimit us in a likely gratuitously violent mannerism unbefitting of one such as yourself?"

Sheffield seems confused. "Um... Yes?"

I nod once. "So far so good for my theory in which case whoever the fourth void mage is, they're likely to either be with you or just plain against us. Putting that aside, would you mind telling us who your master is for future reference?"

"N-no! I'll never tell you about Josep-" She covers her mouth with her hands.

"Joseph? Hm... Joseph, Joseph, Joseph. Louise, according to the legends, are there any prerequisites before one acquires the use of the void capabilities?"

Louise ponders, but this time Sheffield doesn't butt in.

"I believe that really the only requirement is to have some blood of the royal family. The reason I think I have it is because my father was the illegitimate child of one of the dukes," Louise says.

"Okay, so you're technically royalty, Princess Louise."

"Who're you calling Princess!"

"And the other Void mage is in a similar situation if I remember, which means that this Joseph guy is probably also the child of the result of an affair or the straight result of a king and queen judging by the pattern which has a fifty percent success rate-"

"Because 2 out of 4 is a good time to state something's a fact," Louise points out.

"Well, we'll find out eventually because we're sure to encounter him, hell, maybe he's our main antagonist for now. What do you think Sheffield?"

"... Joseph only said to capture you, but I don't think he'd mind if I had my golems rough you up a bit first."

As fast as lightning, Sheffield pulls out some bead looking things from apparently out of her ass (considering I didn't see a single pocket on her) and threw them on the ground between us and her. Then 8 stone golems rise out of the ground. They kind of looked human. I guess? They were golems, did it matter what they looked like?

"Josh, what do we do?" Louise asks.

"You have your wand?" I ask. Louise nodded in reply. "Good. Start casting Dispel to take out the golems and I'll... Do something."

"You don't even have a weapon!"

"Like it'd help much in my current state. Don't worry, I got this," _I think_, I add silently.

"Yeah, that's good and all, but would you mind dodging to the left?"

What? Who's that?

"Idiot! I said dodge it, Josh!"

Yes Archer! Whatever you say! I then proceeded to step slightly to the left-

*BANG*

And got the pleasure of watching the head of the golem in front of me just sort of explode.

"What-"

Me, Louise and Sheffield are all cut off when another shot rings out, and another golem head explodes.

"-The hell's going on!" I manage to finish the question we were all wondering.

"I'm just going to work on dispel now, if anyone's wondering," Louise says before starting to chant.

Another gunshot blows away another golem and- wait a minute, are they reviving?

"Yes, they are," Sheffield says, apparently being able to read minds. "The question was written all over your face."

"Cheater!" The sniper yells. "Fine. I have other means."

I hear rustling so I look around to try and pinpoint it. Unsuccessfully. The mysterious sniper then proceeds to fall from the tree above us and use me as a landing pad.

"Sorry!" she says as she gets off me.

"S'kay," I mutter into the dirt I'm lying face down in. ... Dirt tastes really bad. I roll over slightly and see the mysterious sniper discard her sniper rifle and pull out two pistols from under her skirt. Hah! I can recognize those guns! M1911 pistols! The gold standard of pistols!

Since I can now get a good look at the back of the girl, I can describe her. To the best of my ability. Well, she had black hair tied in two twin tails and was wearing a black long sleeve shirt with a matching black skirt. I feel a sense of deja vu.

The golems immediately gang up on the girl, but she whirls around and kicks one in the face. Another one tries to come up behind he but she whacks it in the face with one pistol before shooting it point blank in the face with the other one.

It's... Weird. I never thought I'd see gun kata in real life, but it kind of looks like that's what she's doing. There's just as much melee involved as bullet shots. Whenever she runs out of ammo, she just ejects the magazines and takes one off the belt she has hung around her chest.

...

How much ammo did she bring? And why is Louise taking so long? Either way, I wish. This girl. Would stop. Moving. For just a minute. So I could see her face clearly! I'll settle for HA telling me if she's a friend or not. ... And she is! Awesome! Blue auras all around! Except for the golems and Sheffield obviously. They were red.

The pattern continues for, I dunno, a minute? An hour? Time's relative when you're on your back watching someone rack up all the kills by being a complete badass.

Eventually, as it must happen eventually, Louise finishes her spell and releases a huge shockwave of energy that goes through the forest. The golems briefly stiffen, then crumble and dissolve into the dirt that spawned them. Sheffield's nowhere to be seen, so I guess she hauled ass when she realized that this wasn't working.

"Bring more golems next time!" The dual gun wielding badass yells into the forest before turning towards us and smiling.

"Yo! Nice to know you two aren't dead!" Emily tells us.

"Emily?" Louise asks in surprise. "What are you doing here?"

"Technically I never left," Emily says as she puts her pistols back in the holsters under her skirt and goes to retrieve her other gun. "Business just wouldn't stop in Albion, so I volunteered to help uncle Scarron with the temp inn until things settled over. Besides, I can't look for you two if I'm at the academy, can I?" She said with a wink.

"Right, right, now where the hell did those gun skills come from?" I asked.

"And why did you drop in from the sky?" Louise asks.

"For the guns, years of training," she says as she pats her sniper rifle. "A guy showed up at the village once a couple years back, not too long after I wound up there, actually. The guy was dying, so we, meaning me, my brothers and family, took care of him. Once we healed him up, he gave us his guns as gratitude before going off to wander the globe. That's how I got this baby and these babies," she says as she gestures to under her skirt. "As for being in the tree, well how else am I supposed to get into a good sniping spot? You expect me to snipe from ground level?"

"If you were in the trees, then why did I need to move a bit to the right?" I asked.

"Well as you saw, I was pretty much right on top of you all. It can be kind of difficult to snipe directly above or below. For me anyway. So what I did instead was rebound the bullets into their targets. Not as easy as it sounds. Josh, you happened to be standing right where one of the rebounds would have gone, and I imagine you would like to keep your head on your shoulders."

That tends to be a solid idea most of the time.

"Now to ask what's been bugging me, those are weapons from back home," I point out. "How'd you get ammo for them or figure out how to use them?"

"Simple. Practice," Emily says with another smile. "Enough practice, trial and error and you can figure out how to use anything! The bullets were harder. Obviously guns here and guns there use slightly different ammunition, so we learned how to make 'em ourselves! Turns out the materials are cheap. Who knew?"

"Well, since apparently this is the time for an info dump of sorts, Emily!" *SLAP* "Emi! You know things, don't you?" I ask the gun toting maid.

"I like to think so. Why?" she asks with a tilt of her head.

So I explained the situation about the whole "no longer a familiar" thing. Emily thought about it, then told Louise to try the summoning spell. Which she did. Nothing happened.

"Why didn't anything happen?" Louise asks nervously.

"Keep calm and don't panic!" Emily says. "Okay. I have a theory, but I need both of you to close your eyes to make it work."

"... Why?" I ask.

"Because this here gun says so," Emily says with a gesture towards her sniper rifle.

Louise and I both shut out eyes.

"A'ight, let's see. Move like this, position this, move this one here," I hear Emily muttering to herself. "Aaaand, alright! Fixing problem in 3. 2. 1."

Then I felt something push against my lips and opened my eyes in shock. I saw Louise kissing me, looking just as shocked as I felt. The kiss lasted for a few seconds before Louise pulled away and glared at Emily. Louise opens her mouth to yell something, but Emily holds up a hand to cut her off. Incidentally, I felt my hand starting to become hot. I examine it and notice the gandalfar runes successfully carved into my hand again. Yay.

"Thank god it worked," Emily says happily. "Because if it didn't in this situation I'd probably have to kiss Louise! Not that I'd necessarily mind that."

"Wait, wait, back up, what just happened?" I ask.

"Well, Louise summoned her familiar, you, but you were standing next to her so there was no need for a portal of any kind," Emily explains. "You just needed to finish the contract by making out."

"You couldn't have told us?" Louise asks angrily. "You had to force us into a surprise kiss?"

"It was the quickest way," Emily explains. "Otherwise you two would have been all embarrassed and all 'I can't do that in front of Emi! We have to wait until we're alone for snuggling!"

Emily then narrowly dodged Louise's fist that was aimed for her face.

"Wh-wh-who's snuggling!" Louise yells, as red as a tomato.

I ignore the imminent cat fight (just barely succeeding in my willpower saving throw) and pick up Emily's sniper rifle which she put on the floor, just to make sure we haven't just deluded ourselves into thinking the contract worked. I pick up the gun, my runes light up, and information fills my brain.

"PGM Hecate II, anti material rifle," I mutter. "Adjustable front bipod and rear monopod for increased accuracy. Used mostly for demolition against long range targets. 30.42 pounds and 54.3 inches long with the stock on."

"Show off!" Emily yells at me while dodging more of Louise's punches.

"In any case," I say as I sling the gun over my shoulder. "I think we're about done here. Let's go before Fouquet takes Emily up on her offer and comes back with more golems."

***Author's Notes***

Uncreative: ... Writing's hard.

Josh: How so?

Uncreative: It's been, what, four or five months? In that time I've gotten a total of one and a half chapters done. This, and part of the next. To be fair, I've also been working on a few other stories in that time, but the point stands. I know I said I wasn't going to post anything until all of part two was done-

Josh: You did?

Uncreative: But at the rate It'll be a few years. Disregarding how much I suck at doing this, moving on! As stated, it's been a few months so reintroductions may be necessary! Hello, I'm the Uncreative, I'm the author of this work of fiction.

Josh: Joshua Springfield, main POV.

Uncreative: ...

Josh: ... Where'd she go?

Uncreative: Ariana left. Something about hot spring reservations with a friend.

Josh: Ah. That makes things simpler. Okay, anything especially noteworthy about this chapter?

Uncreative: A few things. First: As you may know, I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to this and just sort of make things up as I go along. With this chapter, I knew what I want to start with, and I knew what I wanted to end with, but I didn't know how to fill in the blank.

Josh: How do we go from Louise foreshadowy dream sequence to Emily against Sheffield?

Uncreative: I have some things to say about that dream, but we'll get to that. Since I didn't know how to fill in that black, I came up with Yunica. I mean, why not? It's an orphanage, of course there are kids there! Let's give one a name and some interactions! Quality wise did it work? Eeeeh, probably not.

Josh: I didn't mind. I liked hanging out with her.

Uncreative: Right. Second, there used to be a dream sequence here!

Josh: Yeah, what happened to that?

Uncreative: That plot thread got snipped, so keeping that sequnce would have created some question that would never be answered, so the sequence got snipped.

Josh: Neat. Anything else you wish to enlighten us with?

Uncreative: Thirdly, I figured I'd mention that voice that Josh hears. You know, the one calls itself Joc, short for Jocelyn?

Josh: Oh yeah. I almost forgot about that. I didn't even know I replied to her that time.

Uncreative: It happens. Anyway, originally there was a few more occasions where she piped up, but you never responded to any of them, so I cut them out. I almost cut out the last one too, thus removing her existence from this story entirely, but I kind of liked what I could do with it so I left it in.

Josh: I already know, but for the sake of those who don't, I'll ask. Who is she?

Uncreative: She's completely unrelated to this story, that's what!

Josh: And there you go. If she's unrelated, why keep her in at all?

Uncreative: Like I mentioned, I did contemplate cutting her out, but I liked it too much. Ah well. Okay, finally, the fight scene with the nameless thugs was originally quite a bit different.

Josh: How so?

Uncreative: Originally, Yunica didn't run off, Tifa came on her own, you didn't flip out, nobody got stabbed, no bows were broken, and you even got to use that bow as it was intended, and I at one point considered letting you keep it.

Josh: Really? That's definitely a bit different.

Uncreative: Yeah. It's been a bit so I can't remember exactly why I changed it, but I like this version better.

Josh: I don't. My hand gets stabbed.

Uncreative: I think that's about it. See you whenever I finish the next chapter. We're done here.

Josh: See you around.


	11. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: Welcome Home**

So after that whole thing with everything happening, we all decided to head back and rest for a bit, maybe catch up on not-really-all-that-old times.

"So," I begin. "Anything exciting happen to the academy while we were gone?"

Emily puts a hand to her chin and ponders. "Well I haven't been there myself, so I don't know all that much really."

"So you finally admit it," Louise deadpans.

"Admit wha- ooooh. Low blow, princess," Emily says with a sardonic smirk. "Either way, I'll amend my statement. I personally don't know anything about the situation, but I do have my contacts back there just in case something like this happens. From what I hear, there was an attack of some sorts-"

"What!"

"Let me finish!" Emily says before either of us can object to that little piece of info. "They were attacked by some psychotic people who like to burn things, but Colbert, being the badass he is, fought them off. Reports contradict a bit there. Some say he killed them by burning them in a sub molecular level, others say her simply beat them so soundly that they fled like little bitches."

"Those are two different extremes, aren't they?" I ask.

Emily shrugs, showing an air of not really giving a crap. "Okay, please no interruptions until I've finished my reports, got it?" me and Louise nod. "Good. Again, reports kind of contradict on the exact details, but at least here they remain rather constant. Colbert succumbed to injuries gained during the conflict, and appeared, APPEARED," Emily repeats with great gusto as if to preempt any outbursts. "He _appeared_to have then died. No surprised looks or anything, I'm not done! One report however, states that it was actually just a ploy by Tabitha and Kirche to get him out of the academy and hidden away safely so Agnis wouldn't kill him herself."

"Isn't Agnis the one that kis-" I'm cut off when Louise clamps a hand over my mouth.

"Yes Josh we know her! No need to bring that up!"

Emily looks confused. "Is there something I'm missing?"

"N-no! Not at all!" Louise exclaims with a much higher decibel level then necessary. "Nothing!"

Louise's bi tendencies really aren't of much importance in the grand scheme of things anyway.

Emily doesn't look satisfied but shrugs and continues. "Since no one asked, I'll just point out that Agnis' village was burned down when she was little, Colbert was the one who led that particular squad, but they were lied too and it's just a mess of political BS or something like that. Either way, my source indicates that Colbert is still alive, just sort of hunkering down with Kirche in Germania."

"If I may ask, who is this source?" I ask.

Emily thinks for a bit. "Charlotte Helene Orleans. She's one of Kirche's closest friends."

I don't recognize the name, but that doesn't surprise me considering how many people at the academy I don't know. What does surprise me is how short the name is. I mean, my name is almost longer then that! I don't feel like doing a letter or syllable count to check, but I'm sure her's is a longer name. Unless it's a dude named Charlotte in which case I feel kind of sad for him, but he still has a longer name then I do.

"Orleans?" Louise asks.

Emily nods. "Yeah, and?"

Louise ponders for a bit, then shakes her head. "Nothing. I just thought I heard that name before."

"Right..." Emily says, tones of suspicion creeping into her voice. "Anyway, where was I? Let's see, attack, faked death, ah! There was a cooking contest a little bit after that event! First prize went to some first year who made this exquisite banana sundae! Or something like that. Other then that, nothing really."

"Death and Sundaes. Sounds like an average week or two at the academy," I mention.

"You're damn right!" Emily says with a smile. "But enough about that. How've you two been the last, what, month? Is that about right?"

"I think so," I reply. "Let's see, I was sleeping from having almost died, and so was Louise I think, but she got better first. Then I woke up, met some people, climbed some trees, impressed the kids, learned I apparently wasn't gandalfar anymore, took out these two thugs that were going to hurt one of the kids here, got my hand impaled on something or other, stopped by here to climb some trees, got yelled at by Louise, ambushed by Sheffield, then you dropped by and nearly broke my back. That about right Louise?"

"More or less if you ignore the important things like that we now know there are other void mages out there besides me," Louise points out. "But you're right, climbing trees is much more important then that little fact."

"Well it's more fun," I counter. "Because now we're going into another story arc or something and we're going to almost die like twenty times over."

"Story arc?" Louise asks.

"Think of it this way," I begin. "Let's say this is all just one big story that'll be told for years to come after we've saved the world or something."

"Good luck with that," Emily adds.

"Thank you. Now, let's say they decide to split it into a trilogy of novels or something. The first novel could cover from the first summoning to the end of the Albion war, and now we're on the second novel. A sort of story arc type thing."

"So then what's the second and third novels cover?" Louise asks, clearly unimpressed with my analogy.

"Obviously the second one covers from when we wake up to whenever we're finished with this void throwing Joseph guy. Hmmm. Wait, that leaves a whole third book."

"Maybe that's the one where you save the world?" Emily throws in dryly. "After all, someone's got to at some point."

"Maybe, but after an evil wizard guy with powers equal to Louise's in terms of blowing shit up, what's next? An ancient evil dragon that eats void users just so the whole concept of being a void user doesn't just boil down to a novelty and becomes plot relevant again?" I ask.

"Josh," Louise begins. "I'll have you know that that might be the stupidest thing I've ever heard come out of your mouth. And you can say a lot of stupid things."

"Have to agree with the pink one here," Emily says, a mocking smile on her face.

"I'm just throwing ideas at the wall and seeing what sticks. Weirder plot devices have been used before."

After that it was mostly small talk until a small figure was seen approaching us.

"Big bro! Where were you!" Yuca screams at me, one hand on her hip, the other one pointing at me. "You promised you'd play with me! Why were you with big sis Louise and that other lady!"

"They get big sis and big bro and I'm just 'that other lady?'" Emily laments. "Girl, I saved there lives! I deserve some credit!"

"Now you're also a liar, lady!" Yuca throws back. "Big bro doesn't need saving! He does fine just on his own! Right bro?"

"Bro!" Emily exclaims with a laugh. "So he's your brother?"

Yuca puffs her cheeks with rage, a blush visible on her face. "Yeah! Who're you anyway?"

"I'm Josh's mistress, of course, and I make sure to take good care of him each night I'm needed," Emily says. The combination of smile on her face and completely monotone delivery make for an interesting combination. I think it was a joke, but it still causes Louise and Yuca to blush.

"Wh-what're you talking about!" They both scream in unison.

"Yo-you're just a lowly maid!" Louise exclaims in embarrassment. "Y-yeah! A maid!"

"Th-that kind of th-thing isn't allowed!" Yuca yells at Emily. "Big bro is mine and big sis's only!"

"Big sis Tifa, or big sis Louise?" I can't help but ask.

"Bot- I mean Louise of course!" Yuca throws at me embarrassedly.

Emily throws this look at me. It was a look that said, "This is just too good."

"You've certainly been busy the last few weeks," Emily quips. I respond by attaching a palm to my face as Louise and Yuca keep arguing, unaware of Emily's lack of attention for them. She's now mumbling something to herself. The three voices all sort of blend together.

"... Mine, no Big sis's! He's Louise's only!"

"... Commoner's can't have noble's boyfrie- property! That's what I meant to say!"

"Let's see, that's first girl and sister complex? No, maybe just lolita complex? Hard to say but-"

"Shoot me now. Please."

That last one was from me, to me. Luckily I don't think Emily heard it or she probably would have complied with my wishes. She does give a sort of smirk though.

"Ex-excuse me? Please don't fight."

We all stop and turn to the newcomer and see Tifa standing there looking worried. And then silence once again reigns supreme.

"Okay, so that's first girl, sister, and elf complexes," Emily says as she writes something down in a notebook. "Any chance of adding a maid complex to that?" She adds with a wink.

"What's a complex?" Yunica asks.

"Basic psychology, if you ever stop by the academy then feel free to drop by the library, they've got a whole section on psychology," Emily answered.

"What's psychology?" Yunica asks in response.

"Something no one here is old enough to care about," I respond.

"Hello!" Emily says enthusiastically to Tifa, shifting gears as fast as possible. "May I inquire as to the title of your personage?"

"E-excuse me?" Tifa asks, clearly having no idea what Emily just said. And she's not alone.

"Please speak in a language that people can easily be understood," I tell Emily.

She groans. "Fine. My name is Emily Kimberly Pilgrim. What's your name?"

"You're name is more then just Emily?" I ask.

Emily shoots me a confused look. "Yeah. Didn't I bring that up?"

"No."

"Oh. My condolences, Mr. Springfield. So yeah, I'm Emily. What's your name Miss Elf?"

Tifa immediately yelps and tries to cover her ears. _Oh, maybe if I cover my blatantly pointy ears she'll think she just imagined them!_ Is what I assume her thought process was. Sounds like a winning thought process to me.

"I-I'm not an elf!"

"So your ears are just naturally pointy?" Emily asks. "Don't worry, it's fine. Josh and Louise seem to like you."

Tifa hesitantly uncovers her ears and smiles a little. "My name's Tiffania Westwood."

Emily smiles. "Nice to meet you Tifa!"

"Your last name is Westwood?" I ask.

Tifa seems confused. "I'm sorry, didn't I mention that when I introduced myself?"

"I'm not sure. I can't remember. Still an interesting tidbit."

"Emily, are you sure? It's okay that I'm an elf?" Tifa says, getting back to the original subject.

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"That's a valid question that I realized I don't think I have an answer to," I point out. "Why are people so 'Ah Elves! They're going to kill us all!' Was it something I missed in history class, because that was always my worst subject."

Louise brightens up and assumes a lecture pose with her left arm across her chest, supporting her right arm which she uses as a pointer.

"You see, it all started with the Founder Brimir, all those years ago. He-"

"He met some elves, they disagreed about some stuff, they took over the holy land so Brimir tried to nuke 'em, and they didn't like that, so I think there was a war of some kind, but now we all just kind of ignore each other for fear of us losing badly." Emily says, interrupting Louse's probably hours long lecture about ancient history.

"Thanks," Louise says sourly, upset at her lecture being interrupted and abridged.

"And how did this nuking occur?" I ask, desperate to change a topic and abate Louise's potential wrath.

Emily thinks for a minute, then shrugs. "I dunno. I'll look into when we get back to the academy. We _are_ going back to the academy, right?"

Louise nods. "I sent the letter to the princess a few days ago telling her that we were alive and where to find us. I also requested transport back to Tristain."

"Are you leaving so soon?" Tifa asks.

Louise nods. "We have a duty to the kingdom of Tristain. We have to return as soon as we can!"

"In any case, Tifa, do you have some food?" Emily asks. "I'm hungry and we can explain everything over a nice up of warm food."

Tifa smiles. "Yes, I'm sure I have something you'll enjoy."

"Alright! Food time! Lead the way!" Emily says as she drags Tifa away.

"Because great leaders are always dragged around by those they lead," Louise says, before walking after them.

I take a few steps forward, but stop when I feel a tugging on my sleeve, and look down to see Yuca looking up at me.

"What's up Yuca?" I ask nonchalantly.

"Big bro, are you really going to be leaving?" She asks sadly.

"Well, not yet, since the ship's not here, but I will be having to go back eventually."

"But the ship'll be here soon, right? Big sis Louise said she sent the letter days ago, so the ship that'll take you to your home will be here soon right?"

"Um... Assuming we actually get a ship, yeah. Why do you ask?"

Yuca's silent and just holds onto my sleeve for a bit. "I..." I can't make out the rest of it because she just sort of mumbles it.

"Excuse me?"

"I said I don't want you to go!" Yuca yells before grabbing onto me.

"Excuse me?" I think I was too confused by the sudden glomping to register that.

... I just remembered how much I hated this conversation, so here's the cliff notes. Yuca didn't want me to leave, I promised I'd come back and visit, Yuca made me pinky promise which is apparently something that exists here to my surprise. I agreed to the proposal and Yuca let loose a smile similar in brightness to a quasar. I was near blinded by it. Emily's still wrong about the siscon thing.

Since nothing really happened, I'll just speed along. We went back to the orphanage and saw Agnis there. She was there to let us know that our ship had arrived and we were ready to roll and go home. We bid farewell to Tifa and all the kids. Emily suggested Tifa just come along with us, but that didn't work. Something about not leaving the kids. I wondered why we couldn't just bring them along, but then I realized that we'd either have nowhere for them to go, or they'd be living at the academy. Either one could wind up catastrophic.

Farewells were bid one last time, and we all headed for the port. We boarded the boat, which was apparently a really awesome boat since Louise freaked out when she saw it. Something about it being a hugely prestigious vessel or whatever. Boats are boats, and who cares how famous it is as long as it floats? Whether it floats on water or air is inconsequential. ... I like that word. Inconsequential. I need to find a way to work that into more sentences.

So the boat flew from the floating island back to Tristain. You know, it just sank in that the freaking boats are FLYING. How the hell does that work?

"Well, you see," Louise assumed another lecture pose when I asked. This one involved one hand on her hip and the other using her wand as a pointer to make vague gestures. "It all has to do with the ship's fuel, in this case, the wind stones. You see..."

The lecture took an hour. Emily took notes, I took a nap. Tried too, anyway. Louise made sure that my alarm clock woke me up. My exploding alarm clock. When asked What gave away the fact that I was sleeping, Louise responded with:

"You weren't making any 'witty' comments about how 'in depth' or 'long-winded' my lecture was."

As a note, I hate myself for not coming up with the "long-winded" first. That was a good one.

Agnis was not amused by the fact that Louise nearly blew up the ship we were on. Emily, on the other hand, found it hilarious as hell and doubled over laughing. I'm glad my pain amuses you, I'll make sure to blow myself up more often.

Eventually, the journey ended, as all must. We landed at a nice port in Tristain, and we all immediately agreed on our first order of business. Find a goddamn bathroom. After that, we all agreed on our second order of business, find some half-decent food. In case anyone's wondering, our third and fourth orders of business were find a cheap hotel and get a decent night's sleep, in that order.

Apparently the princess wanted to talk to us about something, which is why we're currently in a hurry. It's probably about Louise using the queen's authority to score us some sweet hotel rooms free of charge. Something about "abuse of power," I imagine.

It took a while to get back to the capitol, but we did get there. Me, Louise and Emily walked into Henrietta's room, where she was the only one there. First order of the day? Tearful reunion between the childhood friends, of course! Crying, hugging, cries of "I'm so glad you're alright!" and making out all occurred, not necessarily in that order. ... Okay, okay, the third one didn't happen. They're seriously not making it easy for me to resist writing that thing. Please don't make me invent rule 34 in this world. I could almost see someone like Emily doing that, but don't make me be "that guy." For now, let's be a completely different "that guy" and point out what everyone seems to have missed.

"Sorry, but, um... What happened to all the furniture and stuff?" I ask. "The room's kind of... Empty."

Louise, of all people, gasps and breaks off the hug and scans the room, noting the lack of anything but a bed.

"P-princess! Wh-what happened to all your belongings?"

"Oh! Oh! I know this one!" Emily cries as she raises her hand. "Anne! Anne! Can I answer this one?"

Henrietta smiles and nods. "Go right ahead, Emily."

"Awright!" Emily yells with a fist pump. "You see, Anne-"

"Anne?" I can't help but ask.

"Oh, sorry, Princess Henrietta," Emily corrects. "She likes her friends calling her Anne. I could have sworn you two of all people would have known."

"I-It's rude to address her highness by anything other then her title!" Louise exclaims.

"I kept forgetting," and how the hell do you get Anne from Henrietta?

"It's alright," Henrietta offers with a smile. "I am used to being called many things. Some not as polite as others."

"I have a list, if you'd like to see it some time Anne," Emily offers.

"Can we get back onto the topic of why the room's empty?" I say, trying to steer the conversation back on track.

"Oh, right, stupid me," Emily says with a nervous laugh. "You see, since there was that whole war thing that happened a little bit ago, funds were a little tight around... Well, everywhere. To help with this, the princess sold all her belongings to help fund the war effort!"

"And I'd have gone for a kickstarter program."

"A what?" Louise and Henrietta ask simultaneously. I dismiss the question with a wave of my hand and change the topic to something that's been bugging me.

"Emily," *SLAP* "_Emi_, if Henrietta," *SLAP* "_Anne_, likes being called that by her friends, then why are you saying it, and I'd like a more detailed explanation then 'We're friends.'"

"Damn it, there goes my first answer," Emily says with pouting. "Well, you pretty much hit the nail square on the head. If the question you meant to ask is how me and Anne became friends, that's easier to answer. You know my job, right?"

I nod. "Maid at the academy of magic posing as an information broker."

"Reverse order there champ, but yeah," Emily says with a nod. "You see-"

"Miss Emi," Henrietta says with a slight raising of her hand. "May I answer this one?"

"Go right ahead, your highness," Emily says with a bow.

"Thank you," Henrietta says. "It was a long time ago, I believe it was a little after I had sent Louise and you to Albion to retrieve the letter to Prince Wales. Naturally I still had duties to carry out, I do more then sit on a throne and be a figurehead."

She's already better then most government officials I know of.

"One of these duties required a request letter to be sent. Unfortunately, the person carrying the letter was ambushed by street thugs and lost track of the letter. A few days later, a guard runs in to ask me how to deal with a commotion that a girl at the gates was causing. She was yelling about how she had an important letter to give to the princess immediately. I elected to hear her out instead of listening to the guards and throwing her in the dungeon."

"You have a dungeon?" I ask out of sheer curiosity.

Henrietta giggles. "No, that was just a little joke."

I like people who joke about having a dungeon. A little dark humor can go a long way in making conversations interesting.

"The first thing the girl did when I gave her an audience was to apologize for the commotion the guards had caused," Henrietta continues. "She then handed me an envelope saying it was a response from the person I had sent the letter too. Miss Emi, if you care to continue?"

"Gladly," Emily offers with a cheshire cat grin. "See, the letter Anne had tried to send was lost, and one of my contacts happened to pick it up."

"Which contact?" I ask.

"Oh, you'll probably meet her soon," Emily says. "She's an expert on void magic, so I imagine we might need to contact her about something in the future, but that's besides the point. See, my contact admitted to reading the letter, and let me know that the princess was trying to contact someone. I instructed her to deliver the letter, and give me the response. I got the response and decided to personally march right off to the castle to deliver that thing!"

I'd ask where I was when something like this happened, but then I remembered me and Louise were either traveling to or in Albion, and asking would make me seem like an idiot.

"Okay, yeah, me and the guards didn't get along," Emily admits. "Turns out they're suspicious of people claiming they have important business with the princess but not explaining what the business is. Who knew?"

"I remember finding that out," Louise says. "That was fun."

"And they hate it even more when you knock two of 'em out and try to charge through the gates by force," Emily adds. "But that's besides the point. Like she said, Anne did decide to hear me out. I gave her the letter, told her the current situation and said my words."

"So now you're a maid, an information broker, and a delivery girl?" Louise asks. "I'd have settled for just one."

"Well, delivery service kind of runs in the family," Emily admits. "Continuing on, After that choice meeting, we kept in contact. Not gonna lie, it started pretty much solely business, but as it went on the letters we swapped did start becoming more casual and we became friends. As it stands, I'd say it's a 50/50 split between letters between friends and letters between business partners."

At this point, Henrietta giggles again. "We're better friends then that. Thought it's still hard to believe that I'm friends with THE Shadow Broker!"

Suddenly Emily almost starts panicking and makes a few gestures that seem to convey the message, "Shut up now please!"

"Shadow Broker?" Louise asks.

"Is there something you've neglected to tell us, Emily?" like if your real skin color is blue and you're an alien with tentacles on their head?

Emily still seems slightly panicked, and Henrietta seems confused as hell. Eventually Emily sighs.

"Okay, okay. I... Might have intentionally misinformed you about how big my information network is."

"How badly misinformed?" I ask.

"Let's put it this way, how many contacts do you think I have? People I get information from and give information too?"

Well, there's the princess and the aforementioned self proclaimed void expert, so that's at least two. Um...

"Three? No wait, four!" I offer.

Emily chuckles. "Yeah, no. It's closer to triple digits, though I forget how many. I think it was around 132. For reference, the second biggest information broker has around 42 contacts."

Louise and I stand there shocked. That's... That's a lot of contacts.

"Sooo, why Shadow Broker?" I ask. I mean, I kind of doubt it's what I'm thinking of, because Mass Effect sadly does not exist here.

"Well I needed a name, or an alias of some sort," Emily rather correctly points out. "I mean, a name like Emily Kimberly Pilgrim kind of stands out and makes it easy if for someone to track me down if I happen to run across some info they don't want me knowing."

"The odds of that happening are?" Louise prompts.

"Well people planning my assassination has happened around 3 times in the past few months. I'm still around because it turns out it's hard to plot the assassination of someone you don't even know is real. Go figure. Anyway, I needed an alias, and the term 'Shadow Broker' popped up. I liked how it sounded, so it stuck. And with that, my story time is over, I feel like we should get back to why we're here at all. Why are we here, Anne? What did you want to talk about?"

"I wanted to apologize, Louise," Henrietta says, her expression becoming solemn all of a sudden.

"Huh? Apologize for what?" Louise asks.

"It's my fault. It was my generals who gave you that order, and it was me who asked for you to use your magic for us. Because of me, both you and your familiar almost died."

Oh, that. It's nothing, our lives are put in danger every other thursday, give or take. I've grown used to it, which is not something someone should have a right to say.

"It's not your majesty's fault," Louise says. "You didn't give the order, the generals did."

"No, it was still my fault. We were in this war because of me," Henrietta insists.

"Were we really? I kind of forgot what that war was fought over. Can I get a refresher?" I whisper to Emily.

"You're right in assuming I know everything because the best information broker in Halkgenia. You're wrong in assuming I can remember everything at any one given moment," she whispers back.

"Awesome. Thanks."

"No problem."

"It's no trouble at all princess," Louise says. "I dedicated my entire life to you. Naturally that includes my death as well."

Admittedly, it's probably a little tough to dedicate your death to someone on it's own. _Before I get murdered by this assassin, I'd like to dedicate this death to my mother. You've been an inspiration._ Doesn't really work, now does it?

"And you, brave familiar," Henritetta says as she turns to me.

"Hey, I was just following master Louise, no need to say anything," I preempt. I don't like being congratulated, it makes me feel weird, like expectations are starting to be laid down. I hate people having expectations for me.

"Are you trying to blame me for that?" Louise asks angrily.

"No, I'm trying to pass all credit for everything to you," I counter. "So basically, yeah, I'm blaming you that we're here and alive at this moment."

"I can't tell if you're complimenting me or insulting me," Louise asks with a suspicious glare pointed my way.

"Mostly the first, partly the second."

"Joshua," Henrietta begins. "If I may ask, why do you not want any credit for helping save many lives?"

"Because looking back, I hated every single moment of that!" I exclaim.

"Oh, you don't want credit because you don't like remembering that you almost died," Louise says.

"That makes sense," Emily adds. "I mean, if I saved a life or two, but one of my brothers died during it or something, I'd hate being reminded of the event for that reason. It's kind of like that, isn't it?"

"I see," Henrietta says.

They all close their eyes and nod, as if deep in thought.

"What the hell are you talking about?" I ask. "If I tried to stop thinking about everything here that could remind me of all the times I've almost died, I'd never be able to think!"

"Excuse me?" They all ask.

"Well for one, we've got the walking, pink haired explosion and all the times she's nearly blown me up-"

"Wh-What!" Louise says in shock and anger. "You little-"

"Then there's the academy itself, which I can link to that courtyard where I dueled Guiche and narrowly avoided quite a few nearly fatal strikes, then duels remind me of the one with Wardes, which reminds me of Wardes in general and how he tried to kill me and Louise. Remembering Wardes reminds me of Albion, which reminds me of this whole war in general, lots of things can remind me of almost dying. No, I hated that whole thing in terms of performance."

"You mean you don't think you did a good enough job?" Henrietta asks.

I nod. "Yeah. I mean, think about it. That whole army had 8 generals or people in charge, I believe?"

Emily seems surprised. "Um... Yeah, how'd you-"

"Of those 8, I only got one, I think. Louise got all the others with her giant explosions."

"I did?" Louise asks. "I really wasn't aiming at anything special."

"And on top of that, I couldn't come up with any extremely witty one liner! I mean, I'm fighting an army, and I can't even come up with some extremely sarcastic and witty thing to say to death's face? Disgraceful."

And oh god, what was I thinking! Protectors of Earth? Great song, but there's no way it'd fit that scene! ZERO would have been infinitely more appropriate! Damn it!

"Wait," Louise says. "You don't want credit for being one of the two people to force an entire army to retreat, because you didn't come up with a sarcastic quip before you died?" I nod. "You're serious."

"I'm always serious," I say with the most serious face I can manage.

"That's what worries me," Louise responds.

"I can't help but think about something you two forgot to bring up," Emily adds.

"What could we have forgotten?" Louise asks.

"Oh! I got this one!" I say excitedly. "It's Tifa and Sheffield, isn't it!"

"Ding ding! Points and one cookie to Josh," Emily responds with a smile.

"Yay!"

"Tifa? Sheffield?" Henrietta asks, confused about these alien names.

We then proceeded to explain the whole "other void mages thing," Henrietta was rather scared. Rightfully so considering how broken Louise's explosion are, what happens when that gets pitted against us? Louise then proceeded to apologize like hell for worrying her by bringing up this terrible news. As that happens:

"Okay, I'm not the only one who sees something between those two, right?" Emily whispers to me.

"Nope."

"Oh good. Might wanna watch your back, Henrietta might be gunning for you girlfriend," Emily says.

"I'm more worried about the inverse occurring," I reply.

"And of course we can't forget about this brave familiar," Henrietta says as she turns to me.

"Eh? I mean, excuse me?" I ask. "What can't we forget about me? And didn't we just go over this?"

"No matter the case, I must thank you. If not for you my dearest friend," (read: secret crush) "Would have died. For that, you have my sincerest thanks."

"Didn't I just get through saying that Louise did most of the work?"

"Regardless, you did help, and efforts such as that should be rewarded, should it not?" Henrietta said with a smile.

Then an idea hit me. I can use this to my advantage and accomplish my goal I've had since coming here!

"Okay, but do you mind if I make a request?" I ask.

"Josh! Don't ask for things from royalty!" Louise complains.

"It's okay Louise," Henrietta says in an attempt to calm down the fuming mage. "If it's a reasonable request, I shall see to it being granted. May I ask what your request is?"

I grin.

"Awesome. Okay, we'll need bread dough so we can mold it to a specific shape, some tomato sauce, cheese, pepperoni, and an oven to cook it all in. Think we can assemble these ingredients?"

Louise and Henrietta look confused, while Emily looks like she's trying her best to not start laughing her ass off right then and there.

"Um, yes, we have those readily available I believe," Henrietta says.

"Awesome. Emily, you were a maid, right? Did that include cooking?" I ask.

"Of course! Why do you ask?" She's still trying not to burst into laughter.

"Perfect, I need a wingman. I can't do this on my own. I'd hate to misjudge the oven and burn it all to a crisp."

"Understood, boss!" Emily says with a salute.

"Okay, let's do this!"

***Approximately 45 minutes later***

"... Josh," Louise begins.

"Yes, Louise?" I respond.

"What is this thing sitting on the table?" She says as she points to the center of the table.

I'd like to point out that me, Louise, Emily and Henrietta were currently sitting at a round table that had the food sitting on it. It took a little time, but me and Emily were able to prepare this one holy food. A food known to dwarf all that have come before it. It's name is...

"That, my dear, is a pizza. A food commonly sliced into several... slices, as it is now, and eaten with your hands. A food from my home world that I have longed for since I first arrived here all that time ago. And now I can once again feast upon it's magnificence!"

"It's bread with sauce, melted cheese and meat slices, not the holy grail," Louise points out. "You don't need to speak of it so highly."

"In any case, it at least seems interesting," Henrietta concedes. "Since this was Josh's request and recipe, I believe he should have the first ehem, 'slice,' was it?"

"Yes, and I wouldn't feel right if I ate before royalty, I insist that you go first Henrietta," I say with a slight bow.

"No, it's fine. I insist," Henrietta says.

"Idea!" I shout. "Louise! You have the first slice!" I exclaim.

"Wh-what?!" Louise says in almost alarm. "N-no, I insist, you definitely get the first slice. Please."

Pizza is not the holy grail guys. It doesn't house Angra Mainyu, and there is no reason for you to all be so terrified by it.

"Fine, everyone grab a slice," Emily declares. "The first bite will go to all of us at once! Simple!"

Louise and Henrietta still seem a bit hesitant, but they still nod. And so all four of us grabbed a slice of pizza and got ready to eat it. We all exchange determined glances, then nod in affirmation. As if we heard a silent cue, we all take a bite out of our respective slices. Then a few seconds pass as we let the taste set in.

...

Louise and Henrietta's eyes widen in ecstasy, and I'm almost reduced to tears at the taste I never thought I'd get again. There's another pause of maybe a few seconds... then we all began tearing through the pizza with a ferocity seen only in wild animals that haven't eaten in days. That or a bar full of drunkards. I have heard you can get drunk off of atmosphere alone.

"That slice is mine!" Louise calls out and reaches out for another slice before her hand is slapped away.

"No! Queen's privilege!" Henrietta calls as she tries to go for it.

"No! I saw it first!" Louise reasons.

"Yoink!"

"What!" They both cry out.

Unfortunately due to excessive arguing, neither noticed Emily grab and ingest that piece.

"Th-that was mine, maid!" Louise cries out.

"And that was the last slice," Henrietta mourns, clearly depressed now.

"Ha! Not so!" Emily says as she whips out a second pizza. "I though this might happen so I baked a second one! Try to savor it, this actually is the last one."

"YAY!" The other three people sitting at the table cry in joy.

Unfortunately, as it must go, we were once again left with only one slice left. And once again, Louise and Henrietta were staring each other down, clearly ready to slaughter one another for that pizza.

"Before I see yet another beautiful friendship ruined by who gets the last slice of pizza, I have an idea," I throw out. "Why not, oh I don't know, SHARE that last piece?"

Louise and Henrietta look at me like I'm crazy.

"How do you suppose we do that?" Louise asks, an edge to her voice I've never heard before.

I should have known this was a terrible idea. I've seen more people become evil and friendships ruined then I would care too, all because no one could decide who got the last slice. It's awful.

"Why not just alternate bites?" Emily suggests. "Or you could just both eat it at the same time or something. Whatever keeps you from killing each other."

Louise and Henrietta both open their mouths to protest that terrible idea, then stop and look at each other. Then the last pizza slice. Henrietta then grabs it and holds it up between her and Louise.

"Louise, since you are my dear friend, I would like you to have the first bite," Henrietta says.

"Princess, I will not argue this point with you. Either you take the first bite, or we eat it simultaneously," Louise says determinedly.

"Very well, we shall eat this pizza together then."

And then they both ate the pizza slice at the same time. Not like alternating bites, they literally ate it pretty much in sync. When they finished, they were both blushing mighty fiercely. I doubt it had much to due with the several almost kisses they shared.

"I-in any case, that was a most delicious meal," Henrietta say as she dabs at her mouth with a napkin.

"It might have been the most delicious thing I've ever eaten," Louise agrees.

"Please, that's nothing," I say. "It was good, but nothing like back home. Seriously, New York. Pizza capital of the world. It's even better with the proper drink."

"Right, we didn't have anything to drink, did we?" Emily points out.

"I've got the perfect thing," I say. "It's this sort of fruit punch type of thing. I learned from this one bartender I knew, Desmond. Really nice guy, really good with drinks. Got him to teach me to make that fruit punch thing he made just perfectly. It went with just about anything."

"That sounds delicious," Louise says.

"Indeed," Henrietta says while nodding. "Anyway, now that that is done, we must discuss the matter of your award," Henrietta says while placing her hands on the table. "And don't say the pizza was your reward. A single food, no matter how delicious is not enough for what you've done for this country."

"What? In that case can I just have more food then? I figure if I have enough it'll sort of balance the scale out," I reason.

Henrietta smiles and shakes her head. "I'm afraid I can't do that Joshua. For helping save this kingdom and country, only a reward matching that will suffice."

In that case can I get some pancakes? Those are pretty good too. Following her previous statement, Henrietta gets up and calls someone over. The person called over hands her a sort of cloth bundle that resembles a rolled up cape of some kind. She walks over to me and hands it over.

"Please accept this mantle, and with it the title of chevalier," Henrietta says as I pick up the cape.

Louise seems shocked by the statement, while Emily nods like she saw it coming. As for me? Well...

"Um... Sorry, but that means..." I gesture for someone to fill me in.

"It means you'll practically be a noble!" Louise exclaims.

"No practically about it," Emily says. "It may not be the most prestigious title, but it's still very much a noble's title."

"And that means..." I repeat my earlier gesture.

Louise seems absolutely furious at my stupidity and opens her mouth to yell at me, but Emily beats her to the punch.

"For starters you'll have an annuity of sorts if I'm not mistaken, plus some of the other benefits of nobles. You won't get any land or servants with the title, but you will gain the right to own them, provided you can afford to pay for it. That about right, Anne?"

Henrietta nods, then giggles. "Yes, but who said he wouldn't get any servants with it?"

"Huh?" Louise, Emily and I all ask simultaneously.

Seeing our confusion, Henrietta giggles even harder. "I've already sent the letter to the academy requesting the transfer of Emily from the kitchen staff to serving under Josh."

"WHAT?!" came the cries of three equally confused people.

"A-Anne, you never mentioned that at all," Emily says.

Henrietta laughs again. "I finally have some information you don't, and you expect me to tell you and ruin it?" Henrietta says in a teasing tone.

"Okay, admittedly I'd do the exact same thing," I offer. "But by servant, what exactly do you mean?"

"S-she would have to do whatever you ask of her," Louise says a bit shakily. "Anything, not matter how cruel or demeaning."

"Well that's a negative way to out it, Miss Downer," Emily says with a pout.

"Right, in any case, you're being completely serious here Henrietta?" I ask. She responds with a nod. "I'm honored, truly, but can we do something about the cape? I mean, capes are a bit hazardous, what with their ability to get caught on something. Can I just have like a pin or something? All the honor, none of the cape?"

Henrietta seems confused, but recovers quickly. "I think that can be arranged. So are those your terms? We get you a chevalier pin, you don't have to wear the pin and Emily as a servant and you'll accept being rewarded for your deeds? What say you to that?"

...

Bitchin'.

***Scene Break***

"Now that we're back and all settled, would you mind asking me why on Earth would you try negotiation with the princess to get a worse deal!" Louise asks me once we're all settled down and back in her room at the academy. God, I've missed this place.

"I don't know if I've mentioned this before," _partially on account of not knowing what I'm saying and what I'm thinking,_ "But I hate having the spotlight on me, so to speak. You do big things, people get opinions about you. people get opinions about you, they get expectations. You work to meet those expectations and they get higher, making you work harder until you can't possible meet them anymore. Then, when you fail to meet them, everyone loses faith in you and hates you."

"Maybe it's just me, but I feel that's a kind of cynical outlook on attention," Emily comments as she sits on the bed.

_Maybe it's just me, but I feel I have more experience regarding failed attempts to reach expectations then you._ ... Where'd that come from? I can tell I'm tired from all that happened today when my brain goes on autopilot like that. Weird thoughts like that tend to just sort of pop out of nowhere. Well, it is pretty late. Which brings up a valuable question that needs to be asked.

"Okay, how are we going to handle sleeping arrangements?" I ask. I mean, Louise and I have been sharing the bed, but now with Emily here as well, how are things going to work?

"Simple," Emily says. "That bed can hold thre-"

"N-no! Ab-absolutely not!" Louise says while whirling her arms around and looking likes she's resisting the urge to explode our new servant. "Th-that's-"

"That's what?" Emily asks with a teasing smile. "Lewd? Shameless? A perfectly acceptable idea? I don't see any other sleeping spots here, after all."

"Good night you two," I say as I quickly curl into a ball on my trusted pile of hay.

"No!" Emily says as she pulls me up by the collar.

"Gah! Help! I'm being mugged by my own maid!"

"Mugged nothing!" _That makes no sense!_ "Josh, you're a noble now! You can't sleep on the floor on a pile of hay!"

"... Why not?" I ask.

At that Emily pauses. "... Gimme a minute, I'm sure I can come up with something. ... A minute's all I need."

***One minute later***

"... Damn. I got nothing," Emily concedes.

"Then can you let go of my jacket? Please?" I ask as nicely as possible.

Emily lets go and continues thinking.

"Got it!" Emily says with a snap of her fingers. "If you sleep on the floor then you and Louise won't be sharing a bed anymore! As a married couple, that's not allowed!"

Louise blushes bright red and starts to yell at Emily. "We're not-" then she trails off as if realizing something. "How would you know that?"

"Huh?" Emily asks. "How would I know what?"

"The fake m-m-m-marriage ceremony," Louise says, the seriousness of her expression betrayed by her utter failure at saying the "m" word. "Let's assume you're not lying about being the best information broker in Halkegnia-"

"I never lie!" Emily argues. "I may not always give out the whole truth, but I never lie!"

"Then how did you know about the m-m-m-marriage ceremony!" Louise says, again being betrayed by her inability to say _that_ word without stumbling over it horribly.

Emily hesitates for a minute, then smiles. "Because you told me."

Louise seems confused. "Huh? What are you talking about maid, I never said a thing about it!"

And probably never would have if it hadn't been brought up.

"Oh, so about a minute ago you _didn't_ just admit to a marriage ceremony existing?" Emily says with a smirk. "Let me explain, so you don't have to sit there confused trying to figure it out. It's simple really. I was curious so I tried a bluff to see if what I suspected could have been true. If it didn't happen, then you two would have just shot it down, but in addition to trying to shoot it down, Louise just admitted it. Ergo, I win, points for me, and we all share a bed, okay?"

That is the logical conclusion to reach of course.

"I honestly don't really care," I say. "I'm just going to take a nap or something now, okay?"

And with that climb into the bed and will myself to fall asleep as soon as possible. It fails miserably and I'm awake to feel two distinct presences lie down on the bed. So this is how things are going to go, is it? Me at the far edge of the bed about to fall off, Louise to my direct right, with Emily on Louise's opposite side? Fine, as long as they don't screw with my sleeping patterns. I pride myself on being able to get up as soon as needed.

***POV Switch: ?***

Dear God this sucks! What am I thinking? Louise would obviously be the dominant one, why one earth did I ever think _Anne_ (Of all people!) would be dominant over her! Disgusted at the quality of my work (not the work itself, just the quality) I place a finger on the touchscreen and slide it over the text to highlight it all. Another quick tap, and everything's deleted.

"Good," I mutter to myself. "Now to write this thing and make it not suck."

As I tap a finger to the virtual keyboard to try again, I'm interrupted.

"Huh? Emily? What are you doing?" A veeeeery sleepy sounding Louise asks me, rubbing her eyes as she sits up.

"Inventing rule 34 in this world by writing erotic fanfiction of you and Anne, why do you ask?"

...

I really need to get over this "talking too much about things I shouldn't when I'm tired."

The sight of Louise simultaneously trying to fight the urge to fall asleep and fight the urge to blush and fight off the urge to hit me or yell out or something was honestly quite hilarious.

"M-m-m-m-m-me and the p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-"

"Yes, you and the princess," If I didn't interrupt, that sentence never would have ended.

"Y-y-y-y-y-you're writing e-e-e-e-e-e-e-e-"

"Erotic fanfiction, yes. It's a habit of mine. Wanna read the one I just came up with about you and Tabitha?"

Louise opens her mouth to probably scream something like "ME AND TABITHA?!" but I cover her mouth to keep that from happening.

"Hey, keep it down, there are more sleeping beauties here then you and me," I say with a nod towards Josh.

Louise still seams to be ready to scream her head off, but then she either notices, or realizes two things, and she calms down as she tries processing them.

...

"Oh, right! Sorry," I say as I remove my hand from her mouth. "Were you trying to say something?"

Louise shoots me a glare that's half predatory/half "what the hell are you talking about?"

"I'm afraid I don't recognize one of the words you used. What's 'fanfiction?'"

"Alright, get comfy princess, this could take a few hours."

***Hours later***

"And that about sums it up, any questions?" I ask.

"Yes, you said it would be an hours long lecture, how do you shrink that down to a few minutes?"

***Not quite the hours previously thought to have passed, so much as a few minutes***

"About three years of practice. It came with territory," I respond.

"What territory?" Louise asks.

"The figurative territory of this little beauty," I say as I show off the tablet computer I'm currently holding.

"And what is the... Wait, seriously, what _is_ that thing?" Louise asks, completely and utterly confused.

"Some glass here, a mostly aluminum body, I think the microchips might be silicon-"

"Not what it's made of! ... And I don't even know those last two! What is that actual thing?" Louise asks, clearly unamused.

"Oh, an iPad. A trinket from back home in Toronto."

Louise simply gives me a look. I don't think I need to mention what type of look it was.

"And where, may I ask, is Toronto?"

"No, see, the last 't' is silent, it's pronounced Toronto, not Toronto. Don't worry, everyone gets that one wrong."

"And where, may I ask, is Toronto?" Louise says, putting emphasis on the last "o."

"Much better!" I respond with a smile. "And the answer is Canada. Nice country."

"I've never heard of Canada."

"There's probably a reason for that. Figure it out on your own if you must. I've already spouted far more then I should have. That happens when I'm tired. Ah, well, the story wasn't working out anyway," I say as I power down the device and slip it back into my backpack and lay it down back on the floor.

"Good night," I say as I lie back down and close my eyes.

"Wait," Louise says.

"Ugh, yes?" I say as I sit back up.

"If what I'm thinking is true, then how'd you get here in the first place?" Louise asks, very suspicious. "Josh got here due to my summoning. Wait, let me guess, you're a void familiar, and you were summoned by the pope."

"Close, I was summoned by a turtle. In all seriousness, I mentioned to Josh once that it was an accident. That is not a lie. See, back home I liked stopping by the library to read some books on my little tablet device. Decided to take a shortcut home through subspace, and well... Mom did tell me to be careful with those routes."

"You can store books on that... thing?" Louise asks, clearly having her priorities in order. I nod enthusiastically. "What kind of magic does that thing use?"

"Despite sufficiently advanced tech being indistinguishable from magic, it's pure undiluted SCIENCE!"

"Science!" I hear Josh mutter in his sleep before rolling over. And promptly rolling off the bed and hitting the floor with a thud.

...

"Did he die?" I ask, as Louise and I stare at his unmoving body on the floor.

"I think he woke up long enough to roll off the bed, then hit the floor hard enough to render him unconscious," Louise responds.

"I'd ask if he's all right, but I think he's been through worse. Anyway, in response to your question, it's not magic, it's simply the tech we use back home."

Louise doesn't seem satisfied, or maybe she's just pissed that she doesn't understand the glory of SCIENCE(!) and just doesn't want to show that.

"Still, the most surprising part of that whole thing is that you actually read," _ouch. Low blow. You're good at this._ "What kind of things do you read anyway?"

At that I have to fight down my urge to start going on a blabbing about things I probably shouldn't.

"I've been reading a lot of the staples, you know? Some Index, some Shakugan no Shana, I recently read the entirety of Zero no Tsukaima-"

"Okay, I think I get it," Louise says as she puts up a hand to get me to stop. "I don't think there's anything else to be gained from this conversation. Just... go to sleep or something."

And with that, Louise turns over, wraps the covers around herself and works on going to sleep. I'd do the same, but she's currently hogging all the blankets. Ah well, it's not that cold out.

***POV Switch: Josh***

"Arrgh."

"What's the matter?" Guiche asks me as we sat at a table, eating some lunch in a scene ripped out of every school life anime ever.

"My face hurts. My body hurts. I just kind of hurt in general. Falling off the bed onto a hardwood floor isn't pleasant," I say as I rest my head on the table.

"You fell onto the floor?"

"I'd rather not talk about it. Let's talk about something completely different and change the subject. Like, did I miss the welcome back party, or does no one care about us? I can't remember which, too much head trauma."

"You honestly can't remember how happy my beautiful flower Montmorency and I were to see you and Louise both unharmed?" Guiche asks as he flourishes his rose. "Why, even Verdandi-"

"Okay, that I remember. On the scale of excruciating pain, being body slammed and hugged by that mole just outranked fighting an army, and came up just short of rolling onto a hardwood floor."

"How dare you insult my beautiful Verdandi!" Guiche says, completely aghast at my complaining.

"I retain the right to free speech, that applies to talking about moles. Anyway, time at the academy has been rather boring as of late. Isn't there anything interesting going on? Like a contest, or a dance, or a death battle?"

Guiche hesitates when I mention the last one, then chuckles nervously as he prays that it was just a joke.

"W-well, I do believe a ball is coming up, the Slepneir Ball as a matter of fact!"

"Indulge me. What the hell's a Slepneir, and is it in any way important?"

"You see-"

"-and it was a huge ship! Easily several hundred yards!"

"Ah, but aren't you terrible at estimating measurements?"

I can empathize. I feel for you, nameless guy who sucks at measurements. Still, the conversation intrigued me, so I listened in a bit more. Apparently rumors of some large ship or whatever being spotted flying around. Apparently it was huge, and kind of noisy. Interesting. I'm sure that won't serve as a plot point later on.

"Ahem," Guiche says as he clears his throat to get my attention.

"Yessir?" I say as I direct my gaze towards him, without lifting my head from the table.

"Were you listening to a thing I said?"

"Of course. The Slepnier Ball is a masquerade ball in that all who visit are requested, but not required, to use a magic mirror at the interest to turn into either whoever you hold dearest in your heart, or someone of your choosing. The ball is then held with not a single person having an idea as to who is actually who, removing all social stigmas or personal grudges. That about right?"

Guiche seems both surprised and impressed. "... Yes, that's exactly right. How'd you know? You seemed much more interested in those rumors about the ship."

I shrug. "I've always been pretty good at both multitasking and eavesdropping. Just an application of both of those skills. Now here's my question Guiche. Who do you plan to go as?"

At this, Guiche smiles, stands up, and strikes a pose with his rose. "Why, I shall go as my ideal self. Me! Ah, because I am the most handsome one in the world! Everyone will change into my appearance, of course!"

Well if anyone's going to view you as an ideal person, it's not for your ego, sir Narcissis.

In any case, hmmm. This mirror seams pretty interesting. I mean, being able to change your appearance with a thought or two? What if you could make it so that all you do is get a snappy new outfit? Come to think of it, when magical girls transform and don new outfits, is that kind of like this?

***Scene Break***

I. Hate. Everything. Everything, magical girls in particular. Next time I run into an object that can change your appearance with a random stray thought, I'm skipping it. I've never exactly had the desire to turn into Homura.

And as such, to escape the homuhomu admirers that appeared by the truckload at that Slepnier ball, I was forced to flee. I really want to say that's a point for me, but it's really more of a mark of how attractive people find Homura. Personally I always preferred Kyoko.

In either case, Operation Abscond was successful, and I was able to flee to the courtyard. Either because I was out of range or maybe the mirror broke or something, I was wearing pants again. I will not miss wearing that magical girl outfit.

Interestingly enough, I was not alone in the courtyard. Tabitha was there, sitting on a bench reading a book.

"Not one for parties?" I asked her.

She responds by shaking her head, and not lifting her eyes from the book.

"Me neither, quite honestly."

The one sided conversation might have continued for a bit longer, but I was slightly distracted by the sound of something flying overhead. If it wasn't the middle of the night, or damn close to it, I probably could have told you what exactly it was.

"Okay, it looks like a... Bird? No, too large. Some kind of dinosaur? Heh, I wish. Maybe a-"

"Golem," Tabitha mentions, finally looking away from her book and standing up.

That was gonna be my fifth guess. I guess those glasses aren't just for show.

"Really? A golem? Huh. Neat. You don't see many of those. I mean, there was Guiche's golems, and Sheffield had some golems, but those were, like, months apart, weren't they?"

Damn, it's breezy out tonight. Is it ever this windy at the academy? Oh hey, the golem's landing. I'm unsurprised to see that it's Sheffield on it.

"I'll be honest, I'm not sure if you being alive at the moment is a mark to your skill, or a mark against the girl that she can't hit a stationary target."

?

I turn and look at Tabitha, and notice that she currently has some icicles floating behind her, with the pointy end at me. Wait, were those being fired at me?

Tabitha waves her Shepard's staff and three of them go flying in my direction. Shit! Those aren't going to miss! Dodge!

And so I did.

"Wh-what the hell! What was that for? No, not you Tabitha, I'm asking Sheffield because it's clearly her fault! What the hell's going on!"

Sheffield grins. "You see-"

"Wait, hold that. I'm gonna guess and you tell me how right I am. Gimme a minute."

Sheffield chuckles and steps off her flying golem onto steady ground. "This should be interesting. Stand down girl, I want to see where he goes with this."

Tabitha lowers her staff, then looks at me, as if expecting a good show. Okay, deduction mode on!

"Firstly, I don't mean to sound presumptuous, if I'm using that word correctly, but I'd like to assume that me and Tabitha are on good enough terms that she would never try to kill me of her own free will. As such, there are two options, a direct order slash blackmail of sorts, or mind control, the latter of which you've proven yourself capable of with that Ring of Andvarri. Oh, and don't bother reaching into your pocket to take and try to use the ring, I've already took it when you weren't paying attention."

Sheffield seems both confused and shocked as all hell, and she instantly reaches into her pocket in a hurry.

"So that's where the pockets on that dress are," I mutter.

"You liar!" Sheffield says. "The ring is right here!" She says as she holds out the aforementioned ring. Or rather, tries too. "Huh?"

"Honestly speaking, did you really think my pickpocketing level is high enough to steal it from you like that? No, but taking it from your hand as you stupidly hold it out is much easier," I remark as I toss the ring into the air and catch it. "Tabitha, think fast."

I toss the ring to Tabitha, and she catches it. She stares down at the ring sitting in her open palm.

"Why would you get rid of the ring right after you got it!" Sheffield says, close to pulling her hair out.

I shrug. "At the end of the day er... Night, in all scenarios, Tabitha's making it out alive. Say she kills me. Then that whole distracting you into pulling the ring out was pointless. Tabitha, you mind doing me a favor?"

Tabitha looks up from the ring to me. She doesn't say anything, which I take as a sign to continue.

"You mind taking that to the water spirit? She mentioned it being valuable to her, and you can get there quicker then I can. Please?"

Tabitha says nothing, then silently slips the ring into her shirt pocket. Not sure whether to take that as a yes or no.

"In any case, shall I continue my deduction, or shall I trick you into handing me some more of your magical artifacts?"

Sheffield looks ready to slap me, but then takes a deep breath and calms down. "Do whatever, and the ring's useless, all it's energy was used up at Albion. Just wrap this up quickly. This night's already way off the plan."

Sucks about the ring. The Water Spirit won't be happy. Or maybe she can fix it, I don't know.

"Killjoy," I mutter. "Fine. King Joseph of Gallia is their resident void mage, you're his familiar, and he ordered Tabitha to kill me, probably at your request because we didn't part on good terms last time, sound about right?"

Sheffield doesn't say anything, so Tabitha nods in her stead. Thank you. At least some people remember proper manners.

"Well, let's get this over with," I say as I turn to Tabitha.

Tabitha doesn't really seem to move, but I can still see an air of, "What?" Coming off of her.

"Look, normally I'd say something like, 'I won't go down without a fight!' Or something like that, but lets put the points on the board. You: an awesome stoic badass mage with all sorts of magic spells I don't even know of, giving you the element of surprise upon just having more battle experience. Me: a guy who can only function kind of properly with a sword, which I don't currently have. I'd say the odds are kind of stacked against me."

Sheffield pouts. "And here I was hoping for a show. How boring."

I feign annoyance and roll my eyes. "Ugh, fine. God, some crowds."

And with that I proceeded to catch the icicle Tabitha had fired at my face. ...

"Holy shit, that was close," I mutter as I examine the approximate two inches between the pointy tip and my face.

Tabitha waves he staff, and some air near her solidifies into another sharp slab of ice. Another subtle twitch, and the pointy ice flies in my direction. I give the ice in my hand a swing, and the two collide, creating the sharp sound of something shattering to pieces. Sadly, the resulting collision destroyed my ice stick, as well as Tabitha's ice stick. Good in that I'm not presently in danger of getting spontaneously shanked by ice, but that won't last long, sadly.

"Why not give that another shot, but with like, a freaking wall of ice sticks or some thing," I offer.

Tabitha nods and taps the ground with her stick, casting Ice of Babylon, as a small army of ice sticks appear behind her. Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamn everything, why'd I suggest that?

"Go," Tabitha says, pointing her staff at me, and the icicles fire like a belt of machine guns.

Okay, I've trained my whole life for this! I didn't watch the UBW movie 76 times and fought Chakravartin to perfection with the mortal gauge equipped for northing! I knew this day would come and prepared accordingly!

As the first wave of ice approaches, I contort myself to fit myself into a small gap. A few more shoot towards me, and I roll to the left. Another is about to hit where the roll deposited me, so I jump back, then hit the floor, and a few more pass over me.

_Oh **** this._ I push myself back to a rightful standing position. Two more icicles fly towards me, and I grab them out of the sky. Alright, Shirou-style! Deflect icicles with more icicles!

The final volley of icicles launches, all of them centered of trying to run me through. As they approach I tighten my grip on the icicles I'm currently wielding. As the first few approach I start swinging at them, intent on using my ice to deflect her ice. Battle of ice! Let's go!

It worked for longer then I anticipated, meaning it worked at all. Of course, the whole deflection thing works better when they're not moving at light speed, so I still got a few cuts and scrapes here and there, but no unsightly stabbings, so no complaining there. At the end of the assault, I was breathing heavily, due to the exertion needed to keep yourself from being stabbed 100 times over. I drop the two ice sticks I was using to the ground, where they shatter and litter the floor.

"Anything else?" Please say no.

Tabitha nods, but does nothing else, filling me with intense fear. Luckily I have my instinct is probably rank A++, considering before I knew it I had already thrown myself forward onto the ground, narrowly dodging the 3 icicles that were each around twice as large as the average human.

I took the time to look up and see Tabitha standing over me, then look back at the ground slightly hurriedly. _Striped? I expected plain white._ Oh, and there was one last icicle, again twice as big as a human, maybe more, pretty much right over me. I try to get up, I get stabbed. I try to roll left or right, I probably won't make it far. Well, it was a good run up to this point. My only wish is to be reincarnated as a penguin. I like penguins.

Aaaaand, nothing was happening. Why?

"Tabitha, I don't mean to sound like I'm complaining, but why am I still able to converse with the realm of the living?"

Oh, this must be the whole, "I might consider letting you live if your plea is satisfactory." Well, let's see, I haven't really talked to or known you very well, though to be fair the two or three times I tried to start a conversation they were far too one sided, I haven't given you any reasons to spare me... Oh! I haven't given you any reasons to not _not_ kill me! That should get me some points, right?

"What are you waiting for, kill him already!" Sheffield says.

Yes, please hurry, the icicle is melting onto me. It's cold, and the suspense is killing me. Ah, sorry, my mistake. It's not the suspense as much as the suspended icicle that'll be killing me.

"If I may make one last plea for life, I'd just like to say that I don't think I've done anything to make you want to kill me. So, if you let me live, we can spend some more time together and give you all sorts of reasons not to kill me!"

Worst reasoning I've ever come up with. Still, Tabitha's nice, right? Considering I was still facedown in the dirt, I honestly don't even know if Tabitha could make out what I said, nor could I see if she was about to ice me, which is very annoying.

A few agonizing seconds of silence...

*tap*

OHGODIMGONNADIEIMGONNADIEIMG ONNA-

The icicle made a swoooooosh sound as it sailed through the air, then there was the sound of it colliding with stone, followed by a shatter.

Wait.

Stone?

I roll over onto my back, and look towards where the sound came from, and see the golem shielding Sheffield. I jump to my feet, grab Tabitha's hand and start shaking it up and down in joy.

"Thank you I thought I was dead there! I'll be sure to make it up to you!"

Ah, you never know how much you fear death until a good friend is pointing it in your face. Or at your back. Eh, potato, tomato.

"Please let go," Tabitha says while look at Sheffield.

"Right, sorry. So, we're good?"

Tabitha nods.

"Awesome. Like I promised, I'll relay the debt and give you plenty more reasons not to kill me. Mark my words."

"Marked," She says quietly.

"You little," Sheffield growls. "You dare betray us? Like a dog betraying its master?"

Ouch. Low blow.

"I never swore loyalty to you or Joseph," Tabitha responds. "Never."

Holy shit, Tabitha's awesome.

"I will report your treachery to Joseph at once," Sheffield says.

"Do as you wish. It doesn't bother me," Tabitha says cooly.

"You'll be punished most severely. Even I don't know what he'll do with you."

"I have no reason to be afraid of such threats."

_Soooooo_ coooool.

"Tch," Sheffield says with a click of her tongue. Or maybe that was the tongue click. "My business here is done."

With that sentence, Sheffield mounts her golem and begins flying away.

"Should we... I dunno, go after her?" I ask. "I think we should give some kind of pursuit."

Tabitha shakes her head, and then points to the sky. "No need. They will handle it."

Awesome. Good to know I wasn't the only one with faith in the pigeons. No. Wait. What's that sound? Sounds like... A propellor. Why would a propell-oh Shit!

Suddenly, a giant freaking ship came right the **** out of nowhere and flew in! It was freaking huge! I was this giant freaking ship loaded with propellors and cannons and BOOM! Ahhh. I'm so happy right now.

Sheffield noticed the ship, and proceeded to do that "marbles become golem army," thing, only this time the golems could fly and were heading for the ship. Only to get blown away by the giant cannon! YES! SUPERIOR FIREPOWER!

Sheffield notices that her golems are doing jack shit, with Jack about to leave town, and sent more golems. Most people would be, "It worked so well the first time, let's keep trying that!" Still, it's also obvious she's not making a serious attempt, she's just trying to create a sort of shield/diversion to get herself out of there in one piece instead of ludicrous gibs.

"That may have just made my day," _and more then made up for the Homura incident_. I think to myself as I try to kill the smile I can't get off my face. "Any idea who came to save us?"

Tabitha nods, then puts two fingers to her mouth and whistles. Slyphid proceed to land by us, and rub her/his head against Tabitha. Tabitha pets Slyphid a little, then hops on her/his back. Then she stays there. Eventually it occurs to me that she's basically inviting me to get on.

_"You wanted to know who was helping with that thing, so let's go show you in person,"_ is basically what she's saying. I get it.

With that established, I also hop on Slyphid's back. Slyphid then proceeds to achieve liftoff and head towards the ship.

"Quick question. I'm not privy enough about dragons to tell from a glance. I was wondering, is Slyphid a boy or a girl?"

After I voiced that thought, Slyphid turn its head and glared at me. I can already practically hear the, "_It's so obvious, how can't you tell you idiot!"_

"Girl," Tabitha answers.

"Ah. Sorry Slyphid."

Slyphid huffs and returns her focus to the flying. Eventually we reach the ship and dock, me and Tabitha sliding off Slyphid's back.

"Excuse me!" I yell. "May I enquire as the to name by which the captain of the fantastic vessel goes by?"

"Certainly," a familiar voice says, before coming into view.

Hey I know you!

"Profesor Jean Colbert, at your service, Mr. Springfield," Mr. Colbert says.

Okay, should've seen that one coming.

"So you went and made a ship in your leave of absence? I can respect that," I say while nodding.

Mr. Colbert was about to say something, but is interrupted when Kirche pops up right outta nowhere.

"Yes, my Jean is magnificent, isn't he?"

"Ms. Zerbst, now is hardly the time or place, nor will it ever be," Colbert says as he tries to scoot away from her. Unsuccessfully, I might add, as she too is capable of the movement known to some as scooting.

"You know what? I'm not even going to bother asking," I'll just bask in the joy that Kirche is now after someone else to have her... Ahem, "playtime" with. Girl's a hell of a poker player. She did good at knocking Louise out of the game. She's lucky we were only playing down to underwear and not any further. Then again maybe I'm the lucky one in that regard.

"In the meantime, anyone know a good spot to land? I don't think the courtyard would like being crushed by a few several tons of metal," I point out.

***Author Notes***

Uncreative: I honestly can't think of much to say about this chapter.

Josh: Awesome. Hmmm. Let's start with Emily.

Uncreative: Right, of course. Let me just say that no, I did not write up a draft of whatever Emily was writing. I considered it, but I never wrote it. Semi reversed for the ball. Originally I was including a scene at the Slepnier ball, but it just didn't work the way I would have liked. As such, it got the cut.

Josh: Right. I was kind of referring to the whole "Emily's really from Earth," thing.

Uncreative: Oh, that. Not much to say about it really. It was always just a thing I thought would be neat. The fact that she's read the original light novels came a bit later, as did the information broker business.

Josh: How's her thing even run? It's been three years, and I kind of doubt she only powered it up for the first time in this chapter.

Uncreative: She modified it to make it solar powered. It'll never run out of battery.

Josh: Really.

Uncreative: Why not?

Josh: Either way, I think we're about done here.

Uncreative: See you next time.


	12. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11: Road trip!**

"Whew! That ball sure was something, wasn't it?" Emily said as she served me and Louise, tea in our room. "Some good stuff there, you know? It was all neat seeing everyone look completely like someone else! And-"

"Emily," I interrupt.

"Yes?"

"Shut up," Louise finishes.

Emily pouts. "Oh come on! I was just talking about the ball! You guys act like you had a shitty time there!"

"I did," Louise says.

"And I nearly died," I threw out.

"Bah, that last one happened after the ball!" Emily says. "But what's got your panties in a twist, princess?"

"We're ignoring this topic," Louise replies.

"Agreed."

"Come ooooon!" Emily says shaking my shoulder. "What happened to put both of you in such a rut! Besides the almost dying!"

I sigh and feel my forehead collide with the small table me and Louise were sitting at. "Homu."

First, Emily seems confused. Then the gears click and realization dawns. Then she does her best to not burst into laughter. She pauses to take a deep breath, then opens her mouth to say something.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

That something was more laughter. Good to know my embarrassment is your pleasure.

"You... That was you?! HAHAHAHAHA!"

"Yes, due to a mirror malfunction I was Homura, thank you for confirming that, I never would have guessed," I say with my face still to the table.

"So when Homuhomu made out with Louise-"

There's another thud as Louise's forehead also collides with the table.

"Yes maid, now please continue your needless ramblings," Louise says into the table.

"In my defense I was desperate to get those guys away from me," I add.

"You're lucky it was a masquerade ball," Louise says. "If anyone had actually thought that was me-"

Then you'd have even more people question your sexuality, I'm aware, princess.

"Anyway, since there are no objections-"

"I object!" Emily said.

"Since there are no objections," I continue. "I feel like changing the subject. Emily, you get those things I asked you too?"

Emily nods and pulls some papers out of her pocket and puts them on the table.

"Here you go sir, schematics and guard patrols around Colbert's ship, the Ostland."

I finally lift my head off the table as I pick up the papers and look at them. Holy hell this thing's complex.

Louise seems confused. "Josh, why do you need schematics and guard patrols? Are you planning on stealing that ship?"

"I currently have no plans to do such," I respond. "Just a precaution. Emily, where'd you even get these?"

"Colbert, obviously," Emily says with a smile. "I just told him you were curious about it. Those aren't the originals, obviously, just a copy I had to draw up."

"Impressive."

Then Emily gets a serious look on her face, like she heard something.

"What, are your maid senses going off?" Louise asks from her lace slouched over the table.

"Yes," Emily responds. "I feel like we should open the window. Just to be safe. Since neither of you two will, I just assume I'll have to."

And so Emily walked over to the window and opened it up. About a minute passed, with nothing happening. Wait...

"Emily, did you open the window because you heard a weird sound? Something like a 'Kyuuuui!' Or something like that?"

Emily nods enthusiastically.

"Ah, good. I was worried I was hallucinating that sound. You think it'll come in through the window?"

*CRASH*

... Did I become a landing pad without noticing it? I ask this because I was currently in the position of having someone on top of me, with me face down on the floor. This was because whatever made that noise came crashing through the roof and landed on me. Beautiful.

"To answer your question, I was _hoping_ the window would serve as an entrance to minimize damages," Emily responds.

"Eh? Should Irukuukuu have come through the window instead?" A female voice I've never heard before asks.

"Preferably," Emily replies.

I feel the weight get off me, and stand back up, and look up to see a giant hole in the ceiling. Louise noticed it too.

"You're paying the repair costs," she tells me.

"Noted," I say as I scan the room for the owner of that voice from earlier. I didn't find it. A feeling of dread comes over me as I look towards the open window.

"Kyuuuuuui!"

I didn't even have time to say "called it!" Because a human shaped lump of pain came flying through the open window. Three guesses where it landed, and the first two don't count.

"Kyui! We finally meet!" Human shaped lump of pain says as she grabs onto what once could have been me.

"Yes, nice to meet you, can you please allow me to get up?"

The answer was no, as she didn't move, so I had to make do with my limited viewing angles. Okay, she had long blue hair, was kind of cute, and wasn't wearing anything. Huh. How 'bout that?

"E-excuse me," Louise begins. "Please, who are you and why aren't you wearing anything?"

"Oh!" The new girl, (she said Irukuukuu earlier, didn't she? maybe that's her name?) says as she sits up, allowing me to do the same. Bad idea. I forgot, she isn't wearing anything.

"P-please, for my sanity, wear this," I say as I unzip my jacket and give it to her. She looks at it, then puts it on her head like a hat.

"You have to save big sis!" Irukuukuu says with a determined look on her face.

"Jacket's on wrong," I point out before helping her put it on correctly. "Now, what's going on?"

"And who are you?" Louise asks.

"Irukuukuu is Irukuukuu! I'm my big sis's little sister!" _I... Can't even snark about that. How do I respond to that?_ "You have to help big sis!"

"Wait, slow down," Louise says. "Who's your big sis?"

"Tabitha obviously," I say offhandedly, earning me the confusion of everyone in the room.

"Wh-what are you talking about?" Louise says. Irukuukuu on the other hand...

"That's right! That's right kyui!"

"Wait, how'd you know she was Tabitha's sister, if that is the case," Emily asks me.

"Isn't it obvious? Tabitha has blue hair. Irukuukuu has blue hair. Obviously they must be related. Before you doubt my logic, I'd like to point out that Louise has pink hair, as does Cattleya, as does her mother."

"Eleonore has blonde hair," Louise points out.

"As does you father, your point?"

Louise is silent for a minute, so Emily speaks up.

"So what's going on with Tabitha?"

And so Irukuukuu spun us a yarn about what happened to Tabitha after that ball thing. For "betraying" Gallia they stripped her of her chevalier rank, deep consequences, blah blah blah. Oh, and they kidnapped her mother, who's apparently ill after undergoing Asuka's mother's backstory. Tabitha decided to take them on to get her back and headed home. She got home and ran into an elf. Unlike Tifa, the elf wasn't very friendly. They fought, Tabitha lost and now they have her too, and they're likely keeping her captive in Gallia. As such, Irukuukuu was sent to get us to help.

"That's quite a story," Emily says when Iruk's done.

"Quite," I say with a nod. "I don't mean to doubt, but is there any way you can confirm this?"

Iruk gives me a quizzical paired with an equally quizzical "Kyui?"

Because all great little sisters have an adorable verbal tic.

"It's simple," I say. "Did they get Slyphid too?"

Iruk shakes her head enthusiastically.

"Then would you mind getting her and confirming?"

Louise nods. "If Tabitha was in trouble, their's no way her familiar would lie about it."

Irukuukuu gives a short salute. "Got it! I'll go get her!"

She takes a step and stumbles. I question why, then notice that her right leg seams to be injured.

"Hey, you okay?" I ask.

"Irukuukuu's fine!" She says with a large amount of energy. Shortly before jumping out the window.

...

"Weird day," I remark.

"I agree," Louise says.

"I've seen weirder," Emily says with a shrug.

Before I can question that, the sound of something flying up is heard, and the local dragon sticks her head through our window.

"Slyphid, there's a hole in the ceiling, you might as well actually come into the room," I say.

"Josh, are you serious?!" Louise asks me.

"Why not? I'm apparently paying repair costs, remember?"

Slyphid cheers happily before leaving the window and dropping in through the whole, narrowly missing all the furniture. It still made the hole bigger then it was previously. You hear that sound? I'm pretty sure that's the sound of my savings account committing suicide. It has my pity, but not my money obviously.

"Soooo, Slyphid-"

"Hey! What's going on!" Someone yells as they burst in through the door. That someone was Kirche, trailed by Guiche and Montmorency.

"Gang's all here, party time!" I said dryly.

"What are you all doing here?" Louise asks.

"We heard a really loud sound, and came to make sure you were alright," Montmorency said. "What's Slyphid doing here?"

And so we got everyone caught up on the situation, which both Kirche and Slyphid confirmed. Slyphid confirmed the fight by showing off an injury on her leg she got while trying to save Tabitha. So Tabitha's really a princess, who knew? Obviously that make King Joseph a relative of hers, considering the royal blood thing needed for void magic. He probably has blue hair.

"So, where does that leave us?" Emily asks.

I know it leaves me without my jacket, but I'll refrain from voicing that point. Instead I'll voice my opinion.

"Obviously we need to go get her back," I say. "I mean... I kind of thought that one was obvious."

"Josh, think for a second," Louise tells me. "We can't just commandeer a ship, fly to Gallia and search it top to bottom in the hopes of finding her. We don't even know where in Gallia she is!"

"Um... Aren't you forgetting something?" Emily says with a raise of her hand. "I'm pretty sure I can find out where they're keeping her pretty easily. It should take a few days at most. And I mean, at most. Hell, if I'm lucky I could probably get that info by tomorrow night."

"You're serious," Louise says. It wasn't a question, so much as a expression of surprise and doubt.

"Indeed princess, I am serious," Emily says. "In fact, I'll go get on that right now."

And with that, Emily rushed out of the room, probably to go get that info.

"Okay, with that out of the way, any other concerns anyone has regarding operation: go get Tabitha back?" I ask.

"Not a concern, so much as a question," Guiche says. "You seem rather insistent that we go help her. May I ask a reason?"

"Is it because you still owe her from after that ball?" Kriche asks.

"Say what? I owe her?"

There's a brief silence.

"Remember? Tabitha saved your life by deciding not to kill you?" Louise says. "It's the reason she's in this situation in the first place?"

"Oh yeah! No, I remember that, I just completely forgot I said I owed her one. Right, right, there's that one. I was just thinking that she's our friend, right? Say right."

"Right," everyone says at once. Except Slyphid. She just nodded.

"And obviously, she's in danger from these people, right? Say right."

"Right," They all say at once. Except the dragon.

"So, obviously, as her friends, we need to help her out in the situation, right? I don't think I need to tell you what to say, right?"

"Right," Everyone says.

"Then there's only one thing left to do before we go," I tell them.

Louise nods in agreement. "Right. Let's go to the princess and ask if she can help."

"What? I was gonna ask Irukuukuu for my jacket back. Why do we need the princess's help?"

Louise looks at me like I'm stupid. "How do you expect us to get to Gallia without help? You expect us to walk there?"

"Again, why do we need the princess for that?" I ask.

"After all," Kirche interjects. "We do have the magnificent ship that my darling Jean made."

"Yes, that too."

"Personally I think we should still let the princess know we plan on crossing the border," Momo says in an attempt to stay relevant with this conversation.

"Fine, fine," I concede. "But first, Slyphid, you know where Irukuukuu is? I kind of want my jacket back."

At at, Slyphid reaches behind her and grabs my jacket that was apparently sitting on her back in her mouth and hands it to me.

"Awesome."

***Scene Break***

Well that went well. And by well, I mean "shit." How are we going to explain this one to Iruk?

"Hey! What'd the princess say Kyui?!" Iruk asked us as our group returned to the academy.

"Jacket," I said as I handed her my jacket, which she put on. Does she go around in a state of undress because she enjoys it, or does she just not know better?

"Well, it went..." Louise trails off, trying to voice it with some degree of tact.

"It went shit." Tact I did not have.

Iruk tilts her head with a "Kyui? What do you mean?"

"Josh, you can explain this to her," Louise says. "I'd honestly rather just... Do something else," Louise finished before walking off.

Iruk still seams confused. "What's the matter with her? She seems upset."

"Probably. Things didn't go well, as I said. See, apparently this chevalier thing was as bad an idea I thought it was, because it's keeping us from heading to Gallia," I explain. "Some political bullshit about how if we were caught, and since we serve the queen pretty directly, it could somehow be grounds for another war." I swear when this is over and a war with Gallia breaks out for a completely unrelated reason I will smack something or someone.

"S-so we can't go save big sis?" Iruk says, coming incredibly close to tears. Don't cry or you're gonna make me cry. Crying's like yawning, or a zombie virus, it's contagious as hell.

"Of course not!" I tell her enthusiastically. "We just go to plan B!"

Iruk perks up at that. "Yay! Plan B! Plan B! ... What's plan B?"

"Something I figured I wouldn't have to do for a much longer amount of time," I tell her. "Don't worry, it'll be fine. All I need to do is get those directions from Emily, and I'll be good to go."

"What do you mean kyui?"

"Just whatever you do, don't tell the others, okay?"

"Okay!"

Bitchin'. Time to roll out.

***Scene Break***

Okay, keep an eye on the gauges here, make sure everything's stable. Hmm, wind's not too rough, that's good, if a heavy wind came by then The whole thing could be blown off course. That'd-

"What are you doing?!"

Suck.

"Is that a trick question?" I ask the pinkette who just landed behind me alongside a dragon, a redhead and two blondes. I metaphorically crumble under Louise's death glare. "Okay, okay. I'm currently taking this ship and flying to Gallia using the chart's and maps Emily provided me with. I figured that was obvious considering the ship's in the air."

"By yourself?" Kirche asks.

"Of course not! You're all here!" I respond. "How the hell are you all here anyway?"

"Slyphid came by, grabbed us all and brought us here," Montmorency said.

"Damn everything, I told you to not tell them!" Syphid looks all shocked are confused. _Who me? Never!_ I'm onto you, you shapeshifter. "Well in any case, I'm glad you're all here. It was getting pretty lonely and even though this ship was made to be able to run using as little as one person if necessary, it does help having more."

"How did you know how to work my darling's ship?" Kirche asks.

"I got Emily to get me the schematics and stuff a little earlier, just in case something like this happened. And if you're wondering how I snuck on, Emily also got the guard patrols. You should really out some guards on the ship instead of just around it. That way even if I took them out they wouldn't wake up halfway through the voyage and screw everything up. And in any case, we're all here, the ship's been flying for a solid time, so I say we all go and head for Gallia, okay?"

"I still think this is a terrible idea," Louise says glumly.

"I've done better things with worse ideas," I respond. "Okay, who wants to first driving shift? I'm tired and wanna go to sleep."

***Scene Break***

Luckily for me, and all of us I suppose, the Ostland was well equipped for a long voyage with plenty of spare rooms and snacks for everyone. We quickly split up the rooms accordingly: Everyone got their own room, except for Louise and I who shared a room. Not entirely sure how we came to that arrangement, considering I could have easily gotten my own room, but whatever. Guiche had "volunteered" for the first steering shift, with Montmorency as his navigator. I'll pretend Guiche isn't going to try and woo Montmorency by comparing her to the stars, otherwise this ship might crash into something while they're distracted. Like the ground.

In any case (I have to stop saying that), that left me and Louise in our room.

"You know what we're doing is completely illegal and if the princess finds out we could be severely punished?" Louise asked from her position at a small table each room had.

"What, she'll throw us into her dungeon?" I ask as I lied on the bed and looked at the ceiling.

"Worse!" _What could be worse then being thrown into an imaginary dungeon?_ "She could strip us of our title and rank! And have us arrested for treason!"

"I can't imagine prison being that bad, and I never really wanted the rank. Try again?" I offer.

Wow, I think I can actually see the steam coming from Louise's ears. I didn't know it was possible to be that angry. I think I'm more impressed then anything.

"If things go incredibly bad and Gallia declares war on Tristain, her highness could have grounds to execute us!" Louise declares. "And don't say 'Oh, I owe Tabitha my life so it's okay.'"

"Oh yeah! I do owe Tabitha one! I have to remember that."

Louise looks ready to just explode, but then she takes a deep breath and seems to calm down. Key word: seems.

"Answer me this: Why are you so intent on rescuing Tabitha if you can't even remember that you owe her your life?" Louise asks with a serious expression on her face.

"Answer me this," I counter. "Why are you so intent on leaving her to die?"

Louise seems a bit stunned, so I follow up.

"If we don't go and save her, there is a chance of her dying. Do you want that? Do you want her blood on your hands when you could have done something to prevent it? I'd rather not, in all honesty."

"So you're willing to risk death," _That's an unlikely worst case scenario and you know it. _"As long as it means preventing someone else's death?" Louise asks.

"Well, I'm not willing to die to save a total stranger, but Tabitha isn't a total stranger, now is she?" I ask her. "She's a friend."

Louise seems to mull over this for a bit. In the meantime, I decide I've had enough of this serious talk. I noticed something around here that should help with that. Aaaaha, here we go!

"Screw this super serious talk, time for some alcohol," I say as I pull some wine from the local cupboard.

"Wh-where'd you get that?" Louise asks me in a rather flustered attempt at talking.

"The cupboards are stocked with 'em. I just figure we have a shot or two and forget about all this serious stuff. That okay?"

"N-no!" Louise says. "You really think you can easily switch from a topic like letting a friend die to something so casual so easily?!"

"Of course not. What do you think the alcohol's for?" I ask. Getting an idea, I reach into my pocket and pull out a gold coin. "Okay, heads we don't drink, tails we do, okay?"

Louise thinks it over, probably weighing her odds. Eventually she nods, but doesn't say anything. I smile and flip the coin. It lands on the back of my left hand, and I cover the result with my right.

"You're sure, right? No going back."

"Yes, now just show me what the result is!" Louise says anxiously.

I give a small shrug and and take reveal the coin to the viewing audience. And unfortunately for Louise, this was the same coin I used when deciding whether or not to buy that sailor outfit. The same coin that can apparently only land on tails.

Louise looks at the coin, distraught that she lost the bet. Think of it this way, it's still better then that one time Kirche conned us into that poker game.

"Well, coins don't lie,would you be so kind as to get the glasses, princess?" I ask.

Louise pouts, but gets up to grab the glasses for the wine. While she does that I look at the coin. How the hell can one coin so reliably come up tails every time? Absentmindedly I turn the coin over and observe the other side.

...

Both sides are tails. How 'bout that? I'll hold onto that nugget of info.

***A few drinks later***

"And whatchs sho good about her anyways?" Louise slurs as she sits at the table. "Whis er giant chest and obshene attichude."

"Yeah, I think you said that a few times," I say, doing my best to keep a level head. The more I drink the higher my tolerance grows! That's how it works in RPGs! Wait, can rockets get drunk?

"I don't get it," Louise says a little more. "Whatch kerekay got dat I don't?"

"I feel we've been over this."

At least Louise has loosened up a bit.

"Ahdmit it!" Louise says while pointing at me with the bottle in her hand. "You like her breasts donch you! Schmall breastch are fine too! Right josch?"

"Whatever you say master," I say as I take another swig from my bottle. "This shit's damn good."

***A lot more drinks later***

"Ahnd then Anne tripch over a rock or summin!" Louise says while laughing madly. "And she tries ta grab summin to break her fall and grabs my schkirt!"

"The princess hash good aim." Ah damn, I'm starting to slur. Keep it together.

"Better then you think!" Louise says with a giant smile. "Sche didn't just pull the skirt down, she got her thumbsh in my panties! Sche couldn't just pull my skirt down, she had to pull 'em down too!"

"I'll amend my previoush statement: the princess has the best aim ever."

"Obvioushly I couldn't justch let that schlide y'know?" Louise asks before taking another swig from the bottle. "Such embras... Emba... Um..."

"Shame?"

"Shame! Thanks Josch! Goodog!" She says while patting me on the head. "I couldn't let such schame pass o'coarse! So, completely ignoring my scthate of undress, I turn around and tear the princess' dress off!"

"Did you like rip the dress off or did you just like slide it off?"

"I tore the dam thing right off!"

Oh dear, Louise has started cursing. Could we have ingested too much alcohol? ... Nah.

"I tore the dam thing off!" Louise repeats to make sure I heard her. "Left 'er standing there in her little panties! Den I went for dose too! She dint like that one though. I had to pracitcally ressle for 'em! And she was ressling for my dignity too! Josch."

"Yes Louish?" Damn schl- slurs.

"I got an important life lesson for ya. When yer ressling a girl, always aim for the panties. They're defenseless wifout 'em."

"I shall make a note or that."

"Goodog," Louise says with another at to my head. "Sho anywaysh. We did that fer a bit, before momma caught us. She scolded ush pretty bad. 'It'sh not proper for two young ladiesh to be ressling naked like that!' Or sumin like that. We got anymore wine?"

"Yeah, lots."

"Yay!"

***God knows how many drinks later***

*sounds of heavy making out*

*Slap*

"Watd I shay 'bout reslling girls?"

"Aim for the panties?"

"Good dog!"

*making out resumes*

***Scene Break***

Ahhhhh. My head feels like a jackhammer ran across it. At least the bed's comfy. Oh god. Stop all noises, please.

"Oh, founder," Louise moans as she starts getting up from off the floor. "What the hell happened last night?" Then Louise realizes what she said and covers her mouth, probably in shame.

"Please refrain from talking, my head hurts like hell as it is," I respond while turning over to look at her. It's only polite to face someone when you talk to them, right? "Oh, and watch your step, there's wine bottles everywhere."

"Huh? Wine? Wha-" the words catch in her mouth when she notices all the wine bottles on the floor. "What happened? Why's everything rocking back and forth?"

"That one's probably the ship going to Gallia, remember? And please, don't make so much noise, my head feels like it's about to split open."

"Gallia? Why are we... Oh. Right," Louise says as she shakes her head to try and clear the hangover. Let me know if that one works. "Well, I'm going to head up to the... Gah, what's the word?"

"Too deck?" I offer.

"Right, right," Louise says, still trying to get rid of the after effects. "I'm going to head to the top deck and see if everyone's okay."

"Dressed like that? Or rather, _un_dressed like that?" I say as I roll over and look at the opposite wall.

I start counting the seconds until Louise realizes what I just said.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

"KYAAAAAAAAA!"

Four seconds until she realized she didn't have a stitch on her. She must still be drunk. For the record, my clothes never once left me that entire night, so don't bother thinking anything.

"Please stop screaming," I say as I pull the pillow over my head. "My head's still ringing."

"T-t-t-t-t-t-this i-i-i-i-is-" she's interrupted when some pieces of cloth hit her in the face.

"If I hand you those will you please, just, silence, pleasethankyou," I ask while tightening the pillow around my pounding skull. I'm not even sure what I tossed at her. Anything to make the pain go away. Agh, never again. I'm serious this time.

Louise is silent for a few glorious moments of not head throbbing peace.

"Y-y-y-y-you PERVERTED FAMILIAR!"

Gaaaaah, my poor, poor skull.

*BOOM*

Gaaaaah, my poor, poor entire body.

"I'm mostly innocent!" I pathetically cry while still trying to will the hangover away.

"Louise! Joshua!" Montmorency cries as she throws the door open. "I heard an explosion and-"

...

Wow. The awkwardness in the air is so thick you could cut it with a broken bottle. I think we have one of those around here, maybe I should try it.

"Um... You two were in here for a while so I was coming to check on you and something exploded so..." Wow. Momo actually seems at a loss for words. "I'll let you two continue." Then she leaves and closes the door.

Louise seems stunned. She keeps opening and closing her mouth, but words refuse to come out. Mostly due to my worry about staying in this room any longer, I stand up and walk out of the room, completely ignoring the still stunned Louise, barely succeeding in my willpower saving throw. Probably for the best. I'd hate to provoke her and risk another explosion spell. I doubt the ship could handle it.

I proceeded to head topside to check out the progress on our trip to Gallia. Guiche was still navigating when I got up there. That or shifts have changed so much that its looped back around, but whatever.

"How's the trip coming along?" I ask.

"This ship is remarkably fast for something so big," Guiche remarks, not really answering the question. "If wind conditions remain favorable, we should arrive in Gallia by tonight. When that happens I think we should possibly stop in a town for a rest. We can't just fly straight there, it'd be good for a rest." I nod in agreement.

Look at you, sounding like you're actually competent. Good job.

"Awesome. Keep up the good work," I tell him.

"Joshua, I must ask," Guiche says. "Do you have some kind of plan for whenever we arrive there? Surely you don't intend to just bust down the doors, charge in and take Tabitha by force, do you?"

"If the situation calls for that, I don't see why not," I say with a shrug. "Don't worry. I'll try and come up with something slightly more tactful when we arrive."

"And you do know where we're going, right?" Guiche asks. "Your maid did mention she could get you directions, correct? You are in possession of this info, right?"

"Do you take me for an idiot?" I ask. "You think I'd plot this whole road, er... Sky trip without any idea where we're going?"

"N-no! Of course not! I just wanted to make sure! So, do you have it right now?"

I check my pockets, then my jacket pockets.

"The answer to that one is in the negative," I respond. "It's probably still in mine and Louise's room."

"Would you mind getting it? I'm curious as to our exact destination. You gave me the vague directions, but I'd like something more concrete."

"I _could_ but I won't. That'd mean going back in there. I'd rather avoid Louise at the moment, she seems upset."

Guiche just nods like he understands.

"Whatever," I say, to try and change the subject. "Keep up the good work navigator. I'll go check on everyone else and let them know we've decided to take port for a break. I have recently declared myself captain of this vessel after all."

Guiche doesn't bother replying, and instead sighs in disbelief. Understandable, but aggravating.

If I'm going to be checking on everyone, I guess I'll start with Momo, clear that whole situation up. I head over to her room and knock on the door. She opens the door a crack to see who it is, then opens the door fully when she sees its me. She opens her mouth to say something, but I figure the sooner everything gets cleared up, the easier my life is.

"You were dead wrong about earlier. Louise woke up like that after a heavy night of drinking and nothing happened, getting that out there."

Momo doesn't seem convinced. "Where'd you get the wine if that is the case?"

"Turn you head roughly 90 degrees to the right you'll see it," I tell her.

Momo looks to her right and sees the cupboard. She goes to it, opens it up and pulls out a bottle of wine. I meanwhile refrain from asking how she could have failed a spot check that badly.

"I guess you were right," she says as she examines the wine. "I still apologize for walking in. The explosion worried me."

Spend enough time around Louise and you'll stop worrying.

"Also, we, meaning Guiche the navigator and myself the captain, have agreed to take port for a bit in the first town we come across. You know, get some rest on solid land, refuel if necessary, things like that."

Momo doesn't seem pleased. "Who named you captain?"

Myself. The votes were unanimous. And singular. "Not really important, considering I don't really need to do any captaining. Just thought I'd let you know about the upcoming rest stop."

Momo nods. "Alright. I've been pretty bored. Maybe I can pick up some ingredients and brew some potions to pass the time."

"You do that," I tell her. "I'll go tell Kirche. See you around."

And so I left Montmorency's room and told Kirche about the upcoming rest stop, but not before asking where the hell Slyphid is. Turns out she got her own little room down near the cargo bay. Go figure. I'd tell you the extent of my conversation with her, but sadly this particular dragon isn't capable of good conversation. Damn shame too. I bet she'd be good at it.

Now all that's left is to tell Louise about the upcoming rest stop. Assuming she's not locked in "kill Josh on sight" mode like an evil, half pint, pink haired terminator. Nah, that's not possible. Louise doesn't have the sunglasses necessary.

In any case I approached the den of death and despair where hope goes to die and opened the door and entered, to the sight of an oddly Louise-shaped lump under the covers on the bed. Interesting.

"In any case I'm glad you didn't kill me on sight," I say with a sigh. "Either way, just wanted to let you know we're planning on a rest stop at the next possible town. You know, refuel, step on actual terra firma, things like that. Anything to say?"

"... I'm never having wine again," Louise says from her spot on the bed.

Awesome! We're reached an agreement!

***Scene Break***

"Okay, so run it by me again," Kirche says as she takes a sip of her wine. "What's our plan when we find where Tabitha is?"

"First, we scope it out, get an idea of what we're dealing with, then we come up with an elaborate and foolproof plan to save her," I reply. "Preferably one that doesn't seem like it could work but is in actuality the only plan that could have worked."

"In essence, you don't feel like coming up with a plan at the moment," Louise says.

"More or less."

In case you're wondering, our group was currently seated at a rather nice bar while we took our day or two off. Everyone had a glass of wine except for Louise who was drinking a fruit punch or sorts, and me who was drinking water. Nice, delicious water. And it was all very relaxing.

"So where exactly are we going?" Montmorency asked. "I feel like we're just meandering about with no clear direction."

+10 points for meandering. I like that word.

"Josh, did you find the information your maid gave you?" Guiche asks.

"I didn't get a chance to search the room carefully, I'll do that when we get back."

"In essence, you're lazy," Louise responds.

"In essence, shut it," I respond while taking another swig of my water.

The idle chatter continued for another few minutes or so.

"Um... Excuse me, are you Joshua Springfield?"

The conversations stopped and we all turned to the new unfamiliar voice. It belonged to a little girl. At least she looked little. She couldn't have been older then 9, maybe 10 at the most. She was wearing a white, one piece, sleeveless dress, along with detached sleeves that covered from her wrist to a little above her elbow. She had long white hair that came down to her back and a pair of rather luminous green eyes. Whether or not they could glow in the dark was both a useless question and the one I was currently wondering.

"Um... No, sorry, my eyes don't glow in the dark," the mystery girl tells me as she takes a seat at the table with us. "No, I can't read minds, you were just kind of staring, and that's the first thing a lot of people have asked me."

Sure. If Cattleya taught me anything, its that mind readers don't tell you they can read minds. I'm onto you little girl.

"Right. Anyway, yeah, I'm Joshua Springfield. May I ask who you are?"

The girl hesitates. "Alias, alias," I can here her muttering to herself, just under her breath. The others don't seem to notice though.

"Sarina," she says after a bit. "My name's Sarina."

For my own amusement: "Question, you any good at guitar?"

The group looks at me like I'm crazy, but Sarina ponders instead.

"I guess I'm okay. I mean, I did win that one talent competition, but that was more thanks to my sister, Ariadne-"

"Perfect. Now all we need is for Emily to pick up drums and go for a side ponytail, Louise to take up vocals, and hand me a bass and put me in a dress and we can start our own band."

Louise is technically the first to respond. I say technically as she opens her mouth to voice a thought (likely "what the hell are you babbling about now?") but Sarina beats her to it.

"Oh! You've played that one too?" She asks, her eyes lighting up. "Which one's your favorite? Personally I always liked Chie, but Kirari had a good route, especially her true end."

Sarina keeps on talking about that, while the rest of us exchange looks. This marks my turn to go "what the hell?" A sentiment I don't voice. For now, let's ignore her and bring the topic back up later. Don't wanna scare her off and miss something important.

"Later. Is there any particular reason you wanted to speak to me?" I ask.

Sarina stops and calms down a bit. She reaches into a pocket on the front of her dress. She pulls out a letter and hands it to me.

"Emily asked me to give that to you. You left so suddenly she wasn't sure if she had given you all the necessary information needed so she went over the details and asked me to give them to you. She figured you'd land for a rest stop eventually so she asked me to check the town I thought most likely for you to be at. Lucky me, you happened to be at the first town I checked," Sarina says, earning her the right of me designating her the "Ms. Exposistion" of this tavern.

I open the letter and look through it.

"Okay everyone, looks like Tabitha's at some place called 'Alhambra Castle,' and Emily was nice enough to even provide us directions. Unfortunately, it looks like its rather heavily guarded, and there's a possibility of the elf being there. In any case, this is some good info. Thank you Sarina, and let Emily know I appreciate the help."

"You're welcome," Sarina says with a smile.

"What are we supposed to do?" Guiche asks. "Heavily guarded, and with an elf." _Thanks for reminding us. I forgot in the two seconds its been since I mentioned it._

"Okay, we need to come up with a plan now," I say. "We are a group of five academy students and a dragon, going up against an elf, considered nigh-invulnerable, and an unknown number of guards. Odds are against us in any situation, especially in a frontal assault."

"So stealth it is," Louise says with a nod. "How do we go about that?"

"Everyone brainstorm," I say, causing us all to put our hands to our chins and stroke our metaphorical thinking beards.

"Um... Maybe I shouldn't say anything, but I have a suggestion," Sarina says, prompting us all to look at her.

"Before you do, mind if I ask a question?" I ask.

Sarina seems confused. "Hmm? Sure."

"What do you mean, you shouldn't say anything. What do you lose from helping us?"

She seems hesitant to respond, then sighs. "I'm already in trouble with people higher up then me. After that thing 9 years ago I've had to play things much more carefully. I'm sure this'll be fine since its nothing direct, just a suggestion."

"9 years ago?" Louise asks confused. "You look barely older then eight!"

Sarina chuckles. "I get that a lot. I'm a little older then I look, but that's not important. I was going to suggest, why not put trick the guards into drink some wine laced with sleeping potion? Just get some barrels of the stuff, put the sleeping powder in and give it to them. No guard stationed there'd even think of turning down wine, of that I'm certain."

We ponder that for a minute.

"Momo-"

"It's Montmorency, get it right!" she says angrily.

"Momo sounds fine," I say, with Louise nodding in approval as backup. "Anyway, _Montmorency_, do you think you could make a sleeping potion?"

Momo nods. "Easily. Enough to put the guard force of an entire castle to sleep? Also easy. I just need the ingredients to do it."

"If you had the money, could you get those ingredients around here?" She nods. In response, I reach into my pocket and toss her a bag containing some of my annuity from the chevalier title. "Buy what you need and get cracking. You said you wanted to brew some stuff to pass the time, right?"

Momo nods, then gets up and leaves, presumably to get the ingredients.

"We should head back to the ship and make sure everything's okay for our trip to Alhambra Castle," Kirche says, with Guiche nodding his affirmation. They both get up and head out as well not long after.

"... I guess I'll go take a nap back in our room or something," Louise says, before following the group, leaving me alone with Sarina.

"I wish you the best of luck in rescuing your friend," Sarina says with a smile, before beginning to follow suit and leave.

"Before you go, can I ask one last question?"

"Sure."

"How'd you get that reference I made earlier?" I ask.

Sarina takes a step back, as if she wasn't expecting the question, or didn't know how to accurately respond.

"Th-that's... Um... That is to s-say-"

"Don't sweat it," I tell her with a dismissive eave of the hand. "You gave us the info and some advice on how to rescue Tabitha. I'm fine with a friend having a few secrets."

A quick switch to heightened awareness confirms her as a friend, complete with blue aura. I switch back to normal to get technicolor back.

"Thanks," she says with one final smile before turning around and heading off.

Hmph. Odd girl. Interesting girl. I'm sure I'll see her again. Either way, we do need to get started on the last leg of this particular journey. I'm curious if her plan will actually work or not.

Oh, and out of curiosity, I did check mine and Louise's room to see if I did have the info. All I found was the half burned piece of paper from when Louise cast explosion. Lucky us.

***Scene Break***

And believe it or not, the plan did work! Go figure. It was all a simple matter of having Irukuukuu, Kirche and Montomrency pretend to be "dancers" and seduce the large group of men and then offer them all drinks. They all got drunk in minutes. Oh, and then they all passed out because of the sleeping potion.

Oh! Totally forgot, Derflinger totally ratted out Slyphid as being a rhyme dragon with small abilities aligned with ancient magic. Abilities like making herself look human so she can pretend to be Tabitha's sister and ask us to help under the alias Irukuukuu. Okay, so I was technically wrong about her being Tabitha's sister because of the shared hair color, but that hardly counts. When we meet Tabitha's real sister I can for sure identify her. I bet twenty gold on it.

... I should probably be making a slightly bigger deal over Slyphid, shouldn't I? Honestly though I kind of saw it coming a mile away. And it makes sense. Tabitha's so awesome she can summon extinct animals to be her familiar. Perfectly logical. Now if we can bring her to Earth and have her summon, I might finally get that pet velociraptor. Screw scientists saying its impossible! I'll make having a pet dinosaur possible!

And all this is me dodging the lingering problem. Yes, we knocked the guards out, and we even got the info that Tabitha's locked up in the tallest tower here (like we needed them to tell us that). Still, the elf is unaccounted for. Everyone else was like "Oh! Maybe he left and we don't need to fight him! Yay!" If so, I'd be horribly disappointed. A giant elf fight was built up! I wanna see why everyone's so terrified of them!

"Hey! You're that elf guy aren't you!" A voice I've never heard before says.

"Spiral, keep it down! We're trying to be sneaky here!"

...

Our group exchanges glances.

"Who goes?" I ask. I'm unanimously, and unsurprisingly, elected the one to go check on it. Next time I'm exercising my captain's authority to veto. "I'll be back."

Aaaaaand, there I go. You never say that! I don't care if I'm not in a horror themed work, you never say that! Ah well.

I proceeded to head towards where the voices were coming from. It looked like a courtyard of some kind. Big, empty and flat. Perfect for a battle. When I got there, I noticed three people. The first, and most easily noticeable, was a rather tall looking gentleman with a nice hat, long blonde hair that made him look girly and pointed ears. Aha! Elf located.

The other two were, somehow unsurprisingly, little girls. Tons of little girls this trip. The first girl looked seven years old, at the very most. She had long blonde hair that reached down her back. Oddly enough, a single streak of her hair was a sort of pure white. I wonder if she dyed it like that. What's the point of dying your hair if you're only going to dye a single streak of it? In any case, she wasn't facing me so I couldn't see her face at all. I could make out her skin though. She seems kind of pale. Maybe she needs more time in the sun? She was wearing a white tank top paired with a set of blue jeans. Simple. I like it. On her back was a sword easily as large as she was, the tip just barely not touching the floor, and it was about a foot or so in width. How does she carry that monster? The sword was pure white, handle, hilt and blade (maybe she's going for some kind of color motif?). The hilt was pretty unique, in that it was a set of three wings on each side of the blade for a total of six. Interesting hilt design. Symbolic mayhaps?

The other girl was just as much of an enigma, and only slightly less pale. She had sort of curly green hair that came to her shoulders, but it almost seemed to be made of fire or something, because it would not stand still, and the way it moved kind of reminded me of a fire. Her clothing style perplexed me, because it was basically a Simon the Digger pre-timeskip cosplay. The shorts, the boots, the goggles, the jacket, hell, the jacket even had the Team Dai-Gurren flaming skull with triangle shades. That's... Certainly not something I thought I'd be seeing here.

I quickly switch to heightened awareness to scope it out. The girls appear to be allies of a sort... As far as I can tell. Their colors keep changing. Blue, green, white, yellow, back to blue- Gah! My headache's reemerging just looking at these two! To avoid the headache, I focus on the elf. He's much simpler. He's just red. That makes things- wait a minute. There's... I guess the best word for it is a sort of static? There's a static of sorts hanging around the dude. That is annoying as hell.

The white haired girl sighs. "Well, since Spiral blew our cover-"

"I said sorry!" Team Dai-Gurren member Spiral says in protest.

"Might as well give it a shot," the white haired girl says before turning to the elf. "Is there any way at all we can negotiate for the release of Tabitha and her mom?"

Wait, wait, wait. "How the hell do you know Tabitha and why would you try to negotiate to free her?"

Then they all turn to me. Crap. Gotta learn to keep my mouth shut. Ah, good, I can get some faces on the girls. Spiral's got green eyes that I swear I can see a spiral pattern in, but whatever. Oh, and the jacket pretty much was a part of the Simon cosplay. Lack of any kind of shirt under the open jacket included. ... Interesting costume choice for a little girl. The white haired girl had multicolored eyes. Her right eye (the eye on her right and my left, to clarify) was colored a sort of azure blue, with her left eye being colored a crimson red. I've always loved multicolored eyes, they're just so nice to look at. Looking at both of their faces, its made even more obvious that they can't be any older then seven. What are they doing here?

"It appears we have another guest," the elf says while removing his hat. "I am the elf Bishadal."

"I'm Spiral!" Spiral says to me. "And this is-"

She's cut off when the white haired girl claps a hand over her mouth.

"I'm not important whatsoever, ignore me!" She says frantically.

... Right, I'll trust you on that one.

"What's this about freeing Tabitha?" I ask. "I mean I'd appreciate the help but, I'm a tad confused."

"Well, we were just supposed to be scouting out a bit, but Spiral had to blow our cover!" The white haired girl says while glaring daggers into the girl whose mouth she still had a hand over. "I guess since we were noticed we might as well have tried something. Are negotiations possible Mr. Elf?"

Bishounen sighs and puts his hat back on. "I'm afraid not, little girl. I have unfortunately made the promise to keep them here, and so here they must be kept."

The white haired girl pouts, then releases Spiral. Then Heightened Awareness turns on. Wait, I didn't do that, what the hell? This thing's self aware? That's- wait a moment. The static around Bishounen is changing. It's still kind of static, but it kind of looks like it's weakening.

Then the white haired girl walks up to him and kicks him in the shin. Bishounen grabs his shin in surprise. Is it really that surprising being kicked in the shin?

"That's for calling me a little girl," She says. "Come on Spiral. We're done here." And the two walk off.

"Well that was interesting," I remark.

"Quite. The counter should have prevented that," Bishounen remarks.

"Counter?" I ask.

"It's a high level ancient magic," Derflinger answers from atop my back. "It repels all magic and physical attacks. It's honestly quite troublesome." Then her closes himself back up in his sheathe.

"No way, really?" I ask. The elf nods. "Can I test it?" He nods hesitantly, as if confused by my behavior.

To experiment, I pick up some rubble from off the ground. I give it a good toss at him. At about an inch in front of him, the air sort of distorts, and the rock reflects backwards.

"Whoa! That's awesome!" And frightening. If I was Touma I'd have no trouble kicking this guy's ass. Unfortuantely he's not Accelerator, I'm not a guy with an anti magic right fist. Anti magic. Hmm...

"That thing work against swords?" I ask.

"It works against everything," he responds.

Test #2. HA is still on, so I should probably check that. I pull Derf from his sheathe, and try a swipe at the guy. He doesn't so much as move as the sword stop inches from his face, and is then sent flying back, taking me a few steps back with it. Damn, right. Derflinger absorbs magic, not neutralizes it. How's he supposed to absorb a forcefield?

Luckily that did confirm that the static surrounding him in HA is indeed his counter field. But then why is it sort of fizzling? I don't get it. No, what I don't get is why he has such cheating magic! What, did he steal the omnipotent orb from Elizabeth? Bullshit! Damn, I should get Louise and megidolaon his ass! **** that! And so I swung a right hook at his face.

It connected.

Bishounen is sent to the floor where he is clearly thinking what I was thinking. _What the flying ****?_

"Um... I take it by the look on your face that wasn't supposed to happen?" I ask. "Like that girl kicking you in the shin."

"She must have tampered with it somehow," he says as he gets up. "But how?"

"Her cheats are better then your cheats?"

"I'd rather you not call the spirit's magic 'cheats.'" He tells me.

Well either way, that's probably why it was fizzling. The white haired girl used some hax magic to tamper with the elf's hax magic and level the field. The hax made everything even! Awesome!

"Well that makes things easier," I say as I sheathe my sword and then crack my knuckles. "Back home we call this a variation of shotgun diplomacy. Give us back Tabitha, or I beat the shit out of you. Answer?"

The elf actually seems pissed. "My hands are tied, unfortunately. I must do what I can to keep her here."

"Then by all means, take the first swing, Bishounen," I tell him.

_That_ confuses him. "It's Bishadal."

"Right, Bishounen."

The elf proceeds to take a few steps back to put some distance between us.

"O power of spirits, hidden in these stone with the ancient covenant I command you. Turn into pebbles and strike this enemy of mine!" Bishadal commands.

"Ah! Pebbles! So scary!" I say.

The ground around Bishounen then erupts and flies into the air around him.

"Again? Tabitha did something similar when I fought her," I inform him. "Sharp icicles are more threatening then sharp rocks."

The elf frowns, then points at me. The sharp rocks then proceeded to fly at me rather fast. Luckily for me, it looks like he was aiming to be lethal. Most of them were aimed for either my head, or my torso, specifically my lungs and heart. This put enough room between them and the ground for me to dash under them, and lose the distance between us.

"Hi there!" I say before uppercutting Bishounen. He stumbles back a few more steps.

"You savage," he tells me. "I have already formed a contract with the stones that form this castle. Every spiritual power in this castle is my ally."

"Sorry, I'm pretty sure contracts are Kyubey's exclusive property," I inform him. "Unless the spirits are teenage girls? That'd be interesting."

"I'm losing my patience with you," Bishounen says.

"Then next plan of attack please," I ask politely.

Then the elf lifted both his hands and two giant fist of rock erupted from the ground. Giant in this case meaning each one was about as big as he was.

"Well that's something," I say before one of the fists moves to punch me. I proceed to drop onto the ground, barely missing the tons of stone. The other one moves the drop on me and hit me, so I roll out of the way.

"Whew!" I say as I get up. "That was good. I was just a stone's throw away from getting really screwed up! Too bad your stone's throw wasn't that accurate."

He responds by throwing them at me again. I throw myself forward, roll, then get right back up, again in front of him.

"Hi again!" I say before punching him in the stomach, then I spin around and kick him across the face, sending him to the ground.

"Dude, this is kind of embarrassing," I remark. "After all that buildup-"

I'd have finished my sentence, but one of the fists actually swung and hit me hard, sending me flying across the courtyard. Damn, I hadn't counted on him being able to manipulate them while on the ground. I kind of thought they'd disappear when he lost concentration. You know, like every other mage? Damn elves and their hax ancient magic.

"Nice shot," I say as I get up. A sharp pain alerts me to my right arm. A quick inspection reveals its broken. "Bah, I can kick your ass just fine with one arm!"

"Josh!" Comes the collective cry of the group.

"Is that-" Louise begins.

"The elf, yes," I reply.

"Were you-" Kirche begins.

"Kicking his ass, yes," I respond.

"Is your arm-" Guiche begins.

"Broken, yes," I respond.

"Should I-" Montmorency begins.

"Fix it? Not yet, no time," I reply.

"You're an idiot," Louise says.

"In essence," I reply before turning to the elf. "Okay, that was a nice shot. Though I'm about done here. You mind me finishing this off?"

"You are welcome to try," he says with a faint hint of a smile.

"Awesome. I got this guys, no help needed," I say as I grip Derflinger's handle with my left hand. Not pull him out, just grab the handle. That's enough for the Gandalfar speed boost.

The elf then raises a hand one last time, and a single giant boulder pops out. Emphasis on giant in that if it landed on me I wouldn't be a person so much as a pancake. Joshua pancakes. Still as pleasant a thought as it was against Fouquet's golem.

Ignoring that, I charge at him. He proceeds to drop the boulder over me. I doesn't quite hit, as I proceed to slide and pop out the other side, if just barely. The slide starts to run out of momentum as I reach the elf, so I get up and let go of Derflinger and punch him in the stomach, then I kick him in the chest to unsteady him a bit. Then I clench my right fist as tightly as I can.

"Clench your teeth," I tell him. "This is gonna hurt."

Then I punch him square in the face and he gets a nice spin in as he hits the floor. Or maybe I hit him in the nose. Meh, they're in the same general area. I ignore the pain coming from punching a guy hard enough to break his nose with an already broken arm.

The elf struggles to his feet one last time, confirming that I did indeed break his nose, as evidenced by the blood coming from it. Go figure, elves also have red blood.

"I think we're about done here," I tell him.

The elf actually chuckles. "So this is the power of the void familiars. Descendants of void!" He calls out. "Beware the power of the first ones!"

And with that warning, he then activates a wing with what I'm finally able to recognize as a windstone, and levitates away, and eventually disappearing from sight.

"...Well that's just cheating," I remark.

"Forget the cheating," Louise tells me. "What did he mean by that?"

"Who knows, we'll find out eventually," I say with a dismissive wave of my hand. "Forget that though, Montmorency, can you heal my arm? I liked it better when it wasn't broken."

"Got it!" She says before working on a healing spell to fix it up.

"Awesome," I say as I toy with my newly healed arm to make sure everything's as it should be. "Now, to Tabitha!"

"To Tabitha!" They all cry in response. Except Irukuukuu. Hers was, "To big sis!"

And so we all headed up the tallest tower. When we reached the top, we encountered a door, a quick check confirmed it was locked.

"Okay, does a lock picking spell exist?" I ask.

They all nod.

"Yes, it's very simple, any one of us could do it with ease," Louise says.

"Awesome. I wanted to know what I was ignoring," I say shortly before just straight up kicking the door down. "Simple and effective."

Then we all walk in. When we entered, Tabitha simply looked at our group, almost in disbelief. Tabitha was dressed in a simple nightgown and sitting next to a bed. In the bed was a woman who was asleep. Tabitha's mom I presume.

"Um... Hi there!" I tell Tabitha cheerfully. "Due to unforeseen circumstances, your stay here has to be cut short, and we've come to take you back to the academy, if that'd be okay with you."

Tabitha's silent for a second. "Why?"

"Well, we can't just let a friend down, can we?"

"Don't forget, you owe her," Guiche reminds me.

"Ah, damn. I can never remember that. Right. Look, let's just say this doesn't count, because even if I didn't owe you I'd come help anyway," I tell Tabitha. "So what do you say? Do you want to go back?" I ask as I extend a hand towards Tabitha.

Tabitha simply looks at me for a minute. Then a tear finds it's way from her eye and rolls down her cheek. Then she starts openly weeping. It's too nice a moment, so I won't bother making a joke about how she probably was hoping for someone much better then me.

We had Slyphid take Tabitha's mom on her back, while Tabitha followed us. The entire way back to the Ostland, Tabitha never once let go of my sleeve. When we got on, the first thing she did was fall asleep almost immediately. Not surprising considering how late it had gotten. It might just have been my imagination, but it seems like it was the first peaceful night of sleep Tabitha had gotten in far too long.

***Author's Notes***

Uncreative: Well, this took longer then expected, and I'm getting tired of either saying or thinking that.

Josh: I blame that Madoka Magica movie screening you went to. It practically halted progress while you tried coming up with a Madoka story.

Uncreactive: Not my fault! Those movies were so awesome! Besides, that Madoka story'll be awesome when I get to it! But that's for another point. Okay, what happened this chapter?

Josh: Tabitha rescue coupled alongside the introduction of three characters, Sarina, Spiral, and the nameless one.

Uncreative: Ah, right. Twice in a row we have a "mysterious" white haired girl pulling strings from behind the scenes. Don't worry about it. None of those characters have any bearing on the overall plot and can go without mentioning. Or maybe I just don't feel like talking about them because I'm still kind of ironing out the details myself.

Josh: Right. Anything else?

Uncreative: Um... Well, this chapter was supposed to be a nice short one, but that obviously didn't work out quite as I intended. Oh well. That happens.

Josh: So where'd you get the idea of hijacking the Ostland and going to Gallia instead of the other way?

Uncreative: I don't know, I just wanted to switch things up a bit. Try something different, you know?

Josh: I understand. Okay, I think we're about done here.

Uncreative: See you next time.


	13. Chapter 12

**Chapter 11: Road Trip part 2**

"So how'd it go?" asked Emily, who had been waiting for us at the entrance of the academy when we got back.

Everyone else went for the cafeteria, leaving me with Emily to converse.

"Pretty well, considering," I respond. "I mean, we're all here, no ones dead, Tabitha's with us, I beat an elf in a fist fight, and Tabitha's mom is safely in the care of the the proper institution."

"Fist fight?" Emily asks. "That's a new one."

"Elf had counter and nothing else worked. When all you can do is punch something, you punch everything," as taught by Kamijou Touma.

"Counter?" Emily asks.

Derflinger explains.

"And punching worked how?" Emily asks.

"Weird girl with reality hacks or something, neither me or the elf was entirely sure on the details," I explain. "Anyway, what's with that letter you've been holding this entire conversation?"

"Huh? Oh, this?" Emily says right before handing me the letter. "Just arrived. Haven't even read it yet. Just so you know, I wasn't out here in anticipation of you arriving, the letter just happened to arrive at this time."

Right. I'll trust you on that one. In any case, I open up the letter and read it through. "Oh goddammit! We just got back!"

"What's it say?" Emily asks.

"Well, _apparently_, someone let slip the little detail that our group was away on a short trip to Gallia, so Henrietta wants to apparently have a little chat with us."

Oh, and Princess? Saying, "don't worry, you're not in any trouble whatsoever," doesn't inspire much confidence in the verisimilitude of your statement.

"Um... Sorry," Emily says sheepishly. "Accident. Totally my bad. Should I go let our princess know about this? Or should I drug her so she's not freaking out the entire way to the castle?"

"Might as well just let her know," I say. "Get it out of the way. Make things less difficult for us later."

"So, who tells her, me or you?"

"I vote you. Master's orders."

"Got it, see you in a bit, provided she doesn't kill me for delivering that news."

Don't worry, I'm sure Louise has at least heard of "don't explode the messenger with your legendary magic." Whether or not she believes in it is a different matter entirely.

***Scene Break***

"This is bad, this is bad, this is so terribly awful," Louise keeps saying to herself as myself and herself wait outside the princess's quarters to be allowed in.

"What's with the negativity?" I ask nonchalantly. "I imagine if it was something bad then we would have likely just been told 'Hey, you're being executed! Have a nice day!'"

"Forgive me for assuming the worst," Louise says while shooting a quick glare my way. "I mean, it isn't like we broke about 15 different laws in the past week or so. Oh, wait."

"I counted only 2. Disobeying the princess and illegally crossing a border. Maybe 3 if abducting a foreign citizen is one, but I'm pretty sure she came willingly," I respond.

"Willingly or not, we still broke laws!" Louise exclaims. "We could be stripped of our rank, thrown in jail, executed or worse!"

"Worse? Double execution?"

"We could be banished from Tristain forever!" Louise says. "We could never return! We'd be shunned! We'd have nowhere to go, and you certainly wouldn't be able to find a way back to your world!"

I dunno, if anything wouldn't being forced to move make searching easier? Ah, but if the solution is in Tristain, obviously that wouldn't work. Ah well. I still like the idea of double execution better. Either way, be it banishment or death, the princess opens the doors.

"Louise, Joshua! Please, do come in."

Well, considering the princess seems to be A: in a good mood and B: not carrying any execution class weaponry, I think we'll be good.

And so me and Louise entered the princess's quarters. It was just the three of us, no one else around to eavesdrop. Unless they're invisible, which I doubt. ... Okay, no one here is invisible. I can confirm that one.

I decide to start the conversation. "Okay, so to confirm what you said in your letter-"

"Princess Henrietta, we apologize and will submit ourselves to whatever punishment you have prepared for us," Louise says while dropping to a kneel.

"Hmm? Oh yeah, that too," I continue. "So are we really not in any trouble? The way you worded it came off as kind of... Suspicious."

Henrietta chuckles kind of awkwardly. "Yes, I was a little worried about that. Louise, please stand, I'm not going to punish you."

"B-but your highness, we completely disobeyed you and illegally crossed the border!" Louis says, still kneeling.

Henrietta looks at me, as if asking for help.

"... Don't look at me, it was all her idea," I say, putting my hands up in a defensive manner.

"What?!" Louise says, before getting up and glaring daggers right into my soul. It was another of those eldritch abomination type glares, just so you know. "Says the one who was storming off on his own to get himself killed saving Tabitha!"

I smile. "Got you to stand up!"

Louise seems confused, then realizes that she's standing and tries to kneel back down towards the princess. Before she can do that, I hook both her arms with mine from behind, catching her in a full nelson.

"H-hey! Let me go you perverted familiar!" Louise says as she tries to wiggle free. Yeah, good luck with that.

"And again with the perverted familiar thing," I say with a sigh. "Honestly I expected something more colorful from you."

"You want colorful?" Louise asks. "I'll give you colorful!"

And color did she bring. I mean shit, man. I... I can't even begin to repeat a single one of those. Where the hell did she learn all those? ... Crap! I don't have any paper to right them down! Well, mental note: Louise does not like wrestling holds.

"Excuse me, what was the meaning of the fifth one? I believe it was *******************," Henrietta says. "A rather displeased person once called me that during a public occurrence, so I was curious, and none of the guards would enlighten me."

Then Louise blushes so red that I'm left wondering if she broke her own world record.

"I-I apologize for using such uncouth language in front of the princess," Louise says with a hang of her head.

"Please, in my time as queen I've heard much worse from those displeased with the way things are," Henrietta says with... A roll of her eyes? And a dab of annoyance? I've never seen Henrietta actually seem incredibly annoyed with something. Scary.

"Disregarding our digression," Henrietta says, ignoring her previous battle with annoyance. "Louise, I didn't call you and Joshua here to punish you, I came to reward you."

"Excuse me?" Me and Louise voice at the same time, me being so shocked I drop the hold.

"Despite my insistence you not, you two went to Gallia, breaking around 6 laws in the process," _So that's how many it was. Note: ask Emily for details on it later._ "And saved your friend anyway. I can only pray to one day have that much devotion to something. I see no need to punish someone for doing the right thing."

"B-but it could give Gallia grounds for war!" Louise exclaims.

"Ah yes, of course," Henrietta says while nodding. "Let me just check these letters I have here."

Then Henrietta pulls out a stack of letters and starts going through them, one by one.

"Hmmm, not a war declaration, not a war declaration, not a war declaration, oh, wait! No, never mind, that's not a war declaration," Henrietta says before tossing the stack of letters back onto her desk with a thud.

... That... Was actually pretty awesome. I like this queen, I really do.

"I'm sorry, that was a rather mean way of doing things," Henrietta says. "I have been a little stressed out with work lately. But that's another digression. The point is, Gallia has yet to declare anything close to a war, and if they haven't by this point, it is unlikely they will."

For this particular reason. I give it a month before they declare war for some other inane reason.

"That being said, take this, Louise," Henrietta says, while handing Louise a pin. It was a purple pin in the shape of a crown. "There was a mantle to go along with it, but I thought that'd be a little too much. Well, that and I don't currently have any on me," she adds under her breath.

Louise take the pin and... Pins it, I guess, to the collar of her mantle. "Thank you princess, and I don't mean to sound rude or speak out of place, but does it mean anything, or is it just a very nice pin?"

Henrietta giggles. "If I told you you'd never accept it, so I'll keep this one a little secret, if you don't mind."

"Excuse me?" Both me and Louise voice at the same time. Is the princess trolling us? This whole visit has been surreal as hell. It's weirding me out.

"I'm sorry Joshua, but the same boon can only be given to you under a certain circumstance, that you probably won't be meeting anytime soon," Henrietta says.

"Hey, I'm fine with it." I like my pin better anyway. Crescent moons are better then crowns.

"Now, I'm afraid the whole point of this visit wasn't a reward, just part," Henrietta says, her face turning serious. "I do have a request for you."

"Name it and we'll see that it is fulfilled," Louise says, a sense of duty in her voice and posture.

"I request that you go to Albion," _DAMNIT!_ "Specifically Saxe-Gotha," _DAMNI-wait._ "And locate Tiffania the half elf and please bring her here."

"Excuse me?" Louise and I say in unison for the third time.

"As you know, void magic is something passed down through the royal bloodline, correct?" Me and Louise nod. "After you told me about her, ehem, heritage, I had Emily look into it for some details that had possibly interested me. As it turns out, Tiffania is my cousin."

Louise seems shocked. I just shrug and show indifference. When you've seen as many soap operas as I have, twists like that stop being shocking.

"Obviously, she is not only my cousin, but a void mage as well. Since you two are rather close with her, according to your report upon returning from their, I would like for you to go to her and request that she come to Tristain. Under my protection, of course."

"Okay, see, that's a bad idea, for one reason," I say.

Henrietta's tilted head poses a silent "Huh?"

"She runs an orphanage," Louise reminds everyone. "Taking into account how nice she is under normal situations and how attached she is to the kids and vice versa, I can only imagine what could happen if we tried to separate the two. I like my mind the way it is: not wiped as clean as a new chalkboard."

I agree, a mind is a terrible thing to have wiped.

"I have no doubts she'd do that," Henrietta agrees. "And you can feel free to tell her that she is free to bring them along as well. We can easily secure lives for all of them."

Henrietta asked us to leave as soon as we were able, so Louise and I were allowed to go back to the academy and pack some stuff up. We also campaigned for the use of the Ostland, as it is such a magnificent vessel, and I'm proud to be its captain.

Anyway, I see no way this could possibly go wrong. Just watch, we're gonna be attacked by a freaking robot or something. An opinion I voiced to Louise after we had left. Prompting the following:

"The hell's a robot?" followed by her covering her mouth again.

"I don't really mind if you feel the need to curse," I tell her.

"It's unbecoming for a noble to dirty their mouths with such words!" Louise declared indignantly.

"So that deluge was..." I trail off and prompt for her to continue.

Louise is silent. "Shut up."

"Shut up..." I prompt for something more colorful.

"Shut up you damn familiar," Louise growls. The growl deepens when I applaud her word choice.

"So are we bringing anyone along, or just going by ourselves?" I ask.

"'The princess asked us on this mission, we can't just let other people know about it!' ... Is what I want to say, but considering our luck with keeping things secret," Louise just shrugs, and that says all she needs to.

"The usual?"

"The usual. I'll go get Kirche and Momo- _Montmorency_," Louise corrects. "You go get Guiche."

"And Tabitha?"

"Is about 90 degrees to your right."

I turn the required 90 degrees to the right, and see Tabitha, standing there reading a book, Slyphid in dragon from lying down behind her.

"Hey Tabitha, we're going to Albion to get a half-elf void mage and bring her back to the academy, wanna come?"

"Yes."

"Bitchin'."

"Wait, Tabitha," Louise says. "Just like that? You'e completely fine with this?" Tabitha nods. "W-why?"

Tabitha pauses as if thinking. "Silly question. It's because he helped me."

"Was that pause to find the right adjective to describe the question?" I ask, to which Tabitha nods. "Cool. Be aboard the ostland in... Half an hour?" I ask Louise, to get a time table.

"Half an hour sounds good," Louise says with a nod. "We should easily be able to get everyone notified and ready by then."

"Awesome. Louise, go get Kirche and Montmorency, I'll get Guiche. Tabitha, pack whatever you need and report to the Ostland in half an hour, understood?"

Tabitha nods.

"Awesome. See you then," I say before turning and going off to find Guiche. It may come as a shock, but he wasn't hard to find. The mob of girls surrounding him made him blend in so well.

"Mr. Guiche, please tell us more about your adventure in Gallia!" One girl pleaded.

"Please Mr. Guiche?" Another begged.

... I can't resist, this should be good.

"Ah, but of course fair ladies," Guiche says with a flourish of his rose. "And so there we were. After I had come up with the plan to put the guards to sleep, we had all breathed a sigh of relief. Surely all that was left was to rescue her, correct? Ah, but of course things are never that easy. Before we could ascend the tower and rescue Tabitha, the elf appeared before us!"

That drew a gasp from the girls. I almost chuckled at it. The gasp, not the story. ... Okay, the story. A lot. This guy's pretty good at story telling.

"Ah, but I would not let that deter me," Guiche says "boldly." "And so I pulled out my wand fearlessly and shouted, 'hey, long eared rascal! If you value your life, let our friend go! If not, stronger then any magic in existence, my golems will cut you down!"

That drew cheers from the girls.

"Mr. Guiche is so cool!"

"Taking on an elf like that!"

"How brave!"

I decide to have a little fun and raise my hand. Guiche seems confused.

"Yes, you in the back?"

"First off, let me say, lovely story, just a lovely story, thought I do have a few problems with it."

As I finish that statement, the group completely parts like the red sea, almost as if encircling me and Guiche. The same Guiche who's bravado suddenly seemed forced.

"J-Joshua! How unexpected of you to drop by!" Guiche says.

"Kya!" Come a shout that nearly leaves me deaf. "It's Mr. Joshua!"

"Eh? That's him? The one who single-handedly fended off an army of 75,000?"

"70,000, and I had some help," I correct. "But, that's besides the point. Guiche, I'll repeat. Great story, just a touch inaccurate."

That sends some whispers going through the crowd.

"H-how so?" Guiche asks.

"Well, first off, I don't recall anyone calling anyone a long eared rascal, though that is a new one, I'll make a note of it, could be useful later on. Second, I don't recall you making any threats. I remember me taking a shot at gun barrel diplomacy when I told him, 'give us back Tabitha or I beat the shit out of you.' Oh, shoot, sorry. Pardon my language. Also, I don't remember your golems doing much of anything. Or really you doing much of anything."

"Because you told us to stay back while you took the elf for yourself!" Guiche says.

"Aha! He was trying to take the credit for himself!" One of the girls cries out.

"No way! He was just trying to make sure that his friends wouldn't get hurt trying to fight the elf!" Another one says in response.

After that, it basically broke out into an argument. Half the girls on one side, half on the other. ... Am I actually witnessing a fanbase war? Between mine and Guiche's fanbases? That I didn't actually know existed?

"Aaaaaaanyway," I say before turning back to Guiche. One I started talking they all stopped. ... I like this power. "So as I was saying, yeah you didn't fight because I told you not to. But don't you remember how I told you about the guy's counter magic? You know, the one that reflects everything back at the sender? Derflinger can back me up on that one, right, Derflinger?"

"There certainly was a counter spell in place," Derflinger says. "Considering it's supposed to reflect everything, including swords as you had me demonstrate, I honestly have no idea why you could just punch through it." Then he shuts himself back in his sheathe.

"Wait," one of the girls says, the hamster powered gears in her head turning. "So, if magic and physical attacks didn't work on the elf, but you could still hit him anyway, that means-"

"I did have to follow through on my earlier proposal and beat the guy up. With my bare hands, 'cause anything else would probably kill me."

After that there was practically a cheer.

"So cool!"

"You're amazing!"

Stuff like that. It was... Surreal. And surreal is my word of the day, so lets see if I can't fit it into more sentences!

"Hey, what's with the mob?" Emily asks as she shows up.

"Ms. President!" One of the girls cries out.

... "Huh?" Me and Guiche voice simultaneously. "Jinx! You owe me a drink!" I tell him.

"Wh-what?"

"I'll make sure to call on that one a bit later," I say before turning to Emily. "Explain?"

"Ms. Emily is the head of our support group we created for you!" One of the girls explains enthusiastically.

I toss a confused look to Emily.

"Fan club, essentially. I swear, I had nothing to do with this one at all." _This one?_ "When they heard I was your personal maid they insisted I become the head of the support group."

"Um... That's something."

"So if there's ever anything you need let us know! We'll be happy to help!"

"Riiiiight. Okay Guiche, come on, Henrietta asked us to do something and your coming along too."

"Why him?" Emily asks.

"You never know when demons could spontaneously attack. Guiche'll come with us to act as either a meat shield or a human sacrifice to keep them distracted while we strategically retreat. Unofficially of course. Officially he's the pilot of the Ostland, but we all know what his job really is. Now come along."

"Anything for her majesty!" Guiche says with a salute, before turning and bowing to the group. "I apologize, but this will have to wait for another time."

Then he falls unconscious as Emily gives him a good solid neck chop. We all look at her in response.

"What? He was kind of annoying me," she responds. "Besides, considering Momo, it's probably best he stay unconscious rather then keep flirting."

Point taken, but I don't wanna drag the unconscious casanova myself. Emily, you're helping.

It took a bit, but eventually we were able to drag Guiche's unconscious dead weight back to the Ostland and prop him up on the wheel of the Ostland. I'm sure he'll know what to do when he wakes up.

***Scene Break***

"So this is where that elf you mentioned lives?" Guiche asks as we approach the orphanage.

"Well I see no signs of her being abducted by ninjas, so that's a good guess." Then again they never leave a trace anyway.

"What's a ninja?" Louise asks.

"Badass. Something Guiche'll never be."

"Hey!"

I ignore him.

"Big bro!"

And suddenly I'm tackled by a small child who can apparently hit with the force of a speeding freight train.

"Hey there Yuca," I say as I give the small child a pat on the head hello.

"Josh, who's this child?" Kirche asks.

"He's my big brother!" Yunica says defensively, still hugging me.

"Really?"

"... I call him that anyway," Yunica admits.

"How cute," Kirche says with a smirk.

"Wait," Yunica says. "What's big bro doing here anyway?"

What is the world coming to when a guy can't just fly across halfway a country/continent/whatever-the-hell Halkegnia is, to see the little girl who calls him "big bro?" Back in my day- Yeah, I'll just stop this train of thought before it gets any worse.

As much as I know you want me to say we dropped by to see you, "We do have some things we need to talk to Tifa about. Would you happen to know where she is?"

Yuca nods. "Uh-huh. Follow me!"

Then she grabs my hand and starts pulling me away. I quickly check, and notice the rest of the group trying hard not to crack up for some reason. What's so amusing about a little seven year old leading me around by the hand?

Eventually Yuca leads us to one of the main buildings. I proceed to open the door, and am greeted by the sigh of Tifa and Fouquet having a nice little tea party. ... Huh. How 'bout that.

The others take seeing Fouquet... less then well.

"Fouquet!" They all shout while trying to get their wands.

"Hey hey hey! Everyone calm down!" I say trying to get everyone to put the wands away. "Let's stop and analyze the situation as carefully as possible before we attempt to blow everything up."

"How do you expect us to calmly analyze this?" Louise asks me angrily.

"Like this. Hey! Fouquet! What the hell are you doing here? Wait, shoot. Yuca, don't repeat that."

"That should be my line," Fouquet says.

I don't really see why it matters who tells Yuca not to curse, but whatever.

"Mathilda, you know Joshua?" Tifa asks.

...

"You're name's Mathilda?" I ask.

"Perhaps this is something best discussed over some tea," Fou- Mathilda says. "Tifa's very good at making tea."

... Well, why the hell not.

***Scene Break***

And so we all took a seat and had a cup of tea. Since we were out of chairs, me and Yunica sat on the couch. Well, technically Yunica fell asleep on my lap after one cup of tea. Meh, technicalities. Aside from the awkward silence, it was all pretty good. Oh, and of course I checked Mathilda for the whole "enemy/not enemy" thing I can do. Turns out she's neither. No blue, no red, nothing. Ah, so she's an NPC now, eh? Well, I can't imagine her needing to do much anyway.

"So, Tifa, how do you know these people?" Mathilda asks.

Tifa looks at me, as if asking whether or not it's okay to tell her. I nod. Why wouldn't it be? And so Tifa explained. I'm just glad I didn't have to do it.

"Ah, so it was you two that held off the 70,000 troops all by your lonesome," Mathilda says with a sip of tea. "I'm honestly impressed."

"Thank you. Not sure the rest of the group likes the compliment, but whatever," I say. "Anyway, my turn. How do you know Tifa?"

"Um, if you don't mind me answering," Tifa says. "You remember I mentioned the archduke was my father? He was responsible for the local treasury, and had a viceroy with him at the time. Mathilda is his daughter. I also likely wouldn't be here without her."

Well, that's interesting. Note to self: Emily knows a lot. Get her to tell us everything about everyone we ever once met. Just in case.

"It's nothing drastic," Tifa clarifies. "She just sent me money for living expenses."

"Well, there's no need to talk about my former job," Mathilda says. "Let's keep some secrets here."

I wonder why she could _possibly_ be saying that!

"Hey, Joshua," Tifa asks, prompting me to wonder why there's a veritable group of people yet somehow the conversation's limited to only three people. "Do you know anything about Mathilda's old job?"

...

"Nope, nothing. I think I heard she was the secretary for the headmaster back at the academy? Something like that. I never actually met her, so I don't know much."

Well, that came out easily. Mathilda looks relieved, Tifa looks disappointed, and everyone else is looking at me with an obvious "what the hell, Josh?" Okay, only Louise thought "what the hell," everyone else had "what the heck?" Nobles and their stuffy fancy speak. Luckily, they don't say anything to counter my argument. Hopefully it's because they see where I'm coming from. I say hopefully, because even I'm not entirely sure where I'm coming from.

"I heard that she occasionally went on a few treasure hunts," Kirche adds with a smirk. "How'd that trip to La Roachelle go?"

Mathilda gives a rather forced, wry smirk. "Unfortunately, some other people got there and nabbed all the treasure before I could."

At that, Tifa smiles. "So there's no hard feelings, right? A toast then! Shall I make more tea, or should I get some wine?"

"Tea," me and Louise say at the same time. "Definitely tea." We both affirm.

"Tea it is," Tifa says before getting up to make more tea. Me and Louise breath a sigh of relief. Bullet successfully dodged.

"Well this atmosphere is awkward," I note.

"Right," Mathilda says. "Thanks for covering for me."

"Don't mention it. It seemed like a good idea at the time."

"As opposed to now when it seems like what kind of idea?" Louise asks.

"... Well, it hasn't seemed like any less of an idea," I respond.

"Meaning?" Montmorency asks.

"Meaning I regret nothing."

Luckily for me, Tifa came back with some more tea, so I didn't need to follow that up with anything. And everyone drank tea that night. ... Evening. ... Afternoon? Well, I don't care anymore.

"So," Mathilda says. "What brings your group around here? I have my doubts it was just to stop by."

What is the world coming to when a guy can't just fly across halfway a country/continent/whatever-the-hell Halkegnia is, just to say hello to that one half elf who saved his and his girlfriends lives? It's a damn shame. A damn shame.

"First, let me guess, I'm being forced to explain everything again, right?" I ask the group.

"It's less being forced to, so much as mandatory volunteering," Louise says.

"I'll take your word for that. Anyway, I'll keep it brief and concise. Tifa, we've come to take you and all the kids back to Tristain. Preferably with your cooperation, as I don't believe we were given a clause that states 'do it under any circumstances.'"

Tifa had gasped somewhere around the halfway mark of my statements. Is it really that shocking?

"Like I said, the kids can come too, and we'll make sure they all get taken care of in the best way possible," I say, trying to make it seem like a good deal.

Tifa seems at a loss for words, so she looks at Mathilda. And so, the outcome of our mission rests in the hands of the person we once called an enemy. The one who nearly killed us at least twice, the dreaded-

"Good, go with them Tifa."

Aaaand way to take the wind outta my sails. I was just getting into it too! Also I'm apparently the only one not surprised, because an expression that screams "SHOCK AND AWE!" is clearly on everyone's face except mine, Mathilda and Yunica's. But the last one's still sleeping, so she gets a pass.

"You're agreeing with it?" Guiche asks.

"Yep," Fouquet says very concisely.

"Care to give a reason?" Montmorency asks.

"Why not? Besides, I'm broke," Mathilda says. "I can't afford to keep sending money, which is part of the reason I dropped by myself. It all worked out in the end."

"M-Mathilda, why didn't you say you were having troubles earlier?" Tifa asks, on the verge of tears for one reason or another.

"I didn't want to worry you. Are there any parents that wish their daughter to feel anxious? Don't say anything, it's a metaphor."

"Mathilda," Tifa says sadly. "I understand," Tifa says before turning to our group. "I'll go with you to Tristain. It would be my pleasure."

Mission accomplished! Now fade to black and take us to the boss battle! ... Wait, life doesn't work that way. Hm. That sucks.

"However," Tifa says. "It's late, so would you mind staying the night and we leave in the morning? It would give us all time to pack."

Considering a small child is currently keeping me from getting up, I don't thank that'll be a problem.

***Scene Break***

"Everyone else gets their own room, but _I_ get the couch. Lucky me," I grumble to myself. "Mental note: next time you have to share a couch with someone, make sure they won't fall asleep on your lap and never wake up." I find it hard to sleep when I can't lie down, and Yunica's making that option a little difficult at the moment.

"No... No thank you, I couldn't eat anymore," Yunica mutters in her sleep. "Maybe a few more pancakes."

I could go for some sleep, but pancakes'd be nice too.

Oh, and Mathilda left a while ago. Snuck right off. Not one for goodbyes, that one. Kind of surprising given her rather elaborate send-offs during her previous line of work.

"Joshua?" I hear a voice ask.

A quick peek into the darkness, with a switch to HA for bonus night vision reveals a familiar silhouette. The staff she always carried gave it away before, but whatever.

"Tabitha, what brings you here?" I ask.

She's silent for a minute. "Wanted to talk."

And I damn near died of shock right there. Tabitha? Wanted to talk? Clearly this was an elaborately designed fake meant to kill us all in our sleep. Well too bad! I'm not sleeping!

"Sure, on one condition," I say. "Know a way to get her off without waking her?" I ask, gesturing to the kid curled up in my lap.

Tabitha nods, chants a few words, then waves her wand. Yunica gently floats up a few inches, then moves slightly to the side on the other end of the couch, leaving me free to do as I please.

"Thank you Tabitha, now please give me a moment, I'll take to you right after a quick bathroom break."

After that quick bathroom break, I came back to find Tabitha sitting where I once was, Yunica still curled up in a little ball at the other end of the couch.

"Soooo, what'd you wanna talk about?" I mean, what could Tabitha want to talk about? I don't exactly know her well, so maybe she thought to tell me a bit about herself? Maybe discuss some of her hobbies? Besides book reading?

Another of Tabitha's silences. "Why?"

"... Gonna need to be a wee bit more specific then that," I let her know.

"Why did you come help me?"

"Oh god, not this conversation again!" I say while resisting the urge to throw my hands up in resignation and defeat. "The whole time the group was bugging me about it! 'Oh, you don't know her that well,' or 'Why are you risking your life to save her?' Do I really need a reason to help out a friend who's in trouble?"

Tabitha's silent. "Liar."

"Excuse me?" Tabitha's voicing an opinion on something? And it's that I'm not being truthful? This whole thing has been weird. The princess was trolling us, Mathilda's helping us out, Tabitha's being all weird, what's next, the boss character showing up?

"You said it once, didn't you? 'I'll repay the debt and give you many more reasons not to kill me?'"

... I'm... I'm sorry, that's really not ringing any bells here. I mean, that last part sounds like something I'd say. Wait, wait! Ohhhh! That!

"Right! I said that once!" I say with a snap of my fingers as the memory comes back. "Sorry, I'm really bad at remembering that I owe people things." Except that one bet with Eve, but I'm still not sure how I'll pay that one if she wins. I suppose just finding an example as opposed to a hands on thing would be good enough.

"Meaning?"

"When I decided to go and give you a hand, it wasn't because I owed you. Hell, they had to keep reminding me that I owed you at all. Again, hell, I completely forgot I ever mentioned that until you said it right now."

At that Tabitha seems... Disappointed?

"My favor to you really meant that little?"

"Nononononononononono! Quite the opposite! I like living! I'm really grateful that you let me live! I'll make sure to make it up to you at some point! Apparently! You mentioned I basically said I owed you one, right?" Tabitha nods. "I remember after we rescued you that that didn't count, because it's something I would have done anyway, no matter the circumstances. Ignoring how little I know about you on account of your silence, which is perfectly fine by the way, I still consider you a good friend, and I'm not going to let a good friend die when I can do something to help."

Tabitha mulls this over. "Really?"

"Yes, Tabby, I'm serious."

That seems to confuse her. "Tabby?"

Oh, crap. "Sorry. Back home I knew this one cat named Tabby. She was quiet and kept to herself, but she still loved company and followed me everywhere after I fed her a bit and made friends with her. You kind of remind me of her. ... We're cool and you're not going to follow me everywhere I go like a little kitty cat, are you, Tabby?"

Tabitha doesn't respond, but I do notice something. It was so small, and admittedly I might have imagined it looking back, but I swear I saw the corners of her mouth ever so slightly quirk upward. Ever so slightly. Even if I imagined it, Tabitha's smile is something I'll be keeping a mental image of.

"Thank you, I've heard what I need," Tabitha says before getting up and turning to leave.

"Awesome. Good night Tabby."

A brief silence. "Good night Joshua."

"Oh, brief note. I prefer Josh to Joshua. Shorter and easier."

I see the back of Tabitha's head bob in a nod of agreement. "Good night Josh."

And then she left back to her room. I'd say this was a productive day. Made friends with a famous thief who's broken out of prison and is on the run from the law, completely shut down an orphanage and had everyone agree to move to a completely different part of the country/continent/whatever, and I'm pretty sure I just set up a Tabitha social link. That or it ranked up. Either or.

Now, where to sleep? I guess I could fit on the couch. It is pretty big.

"Yuca, you wake up at any point during that? If so, would you mind scooching over a bit to make some room for me so I can sleep too?"

Yunica proceeded to make a sound similar to a murgle before talking in her sleep again. "I love you too..." Followed by a completely unrelated: "Licorice!" Before she proceeded to bite down on the arm rest of the couch. Ah, the good old days when you had dreams about food and woke up having eaten your pillow. Either way, I'm sure the couch is comfortable enough.

***Scene Break***

"Someone remind me, why did we park the Ostland so far away from everything!" I complain.

"It was the only place we could land that was big enough to hold that ship," Louise says.

"It wasn't as bad when we had Slyphid fly everyone over," I complain. "No, don't say anything. I know Tifa and the kids get priority. Did you see the look on their faces when Slyph dropped by? I didn't think kids could get that ecstatic."

"They did seem rather pleased with the ride," Guiche says in affirmation. "Except for that one girl ah... Yuca?"

"Yunica," I correct. "Yeah, I'm pretty sure she's afraid of heights considering that one time I was climbing a tree, but whatever. Speaking of height, whose idea was it to make our route go straight past a giant canyon! We could be killed if we fall off this cliff!" And people die when they're killed!

"I assume it was the one who said something to the effect of, 'we have to! The view is too awesome to pass up!'" Louise says in a rather dry monotone. "Argh, let me think. I can't quite place who here that sounds like. Think you could?"

"Touché," I respond quietly. "On a just very slightly unrelated note, anyone else feel that sort of rumbling, or am I imagining things again?"

"Again?" Louise asks.

"And what rumbl-" Guiche is interrupted when a rather loud shake hits all of us.

"That rumbling! I'm not imagining that, am I?" I ask.

"How can you even-, you know what, forget I asked," Louise says with a shake of her head.

"Oh hey! There's the reason!" I say as I do my best to ignore her and notice our new guest.

It kind of looked like a cross between the colossus of rhodes and something straight outta Shadow of the Colossus. Hmmmm.

"Louise, question."

"Is now _really_ the time?" She asks.

"Which's be more fitting, the colossus of Rhodes, or the 17th colossus?"

"_What?!_"

"The 17th colossus of Rhodes, got it! Thanks love," I tell her.

"It's been a while you two," a voice calls from the 17th colossus.

"Oh! Sheffield! Long time no see!" I call back. "Question-"

"No, I'm not anywhere near you. I'm talking through the Jormundgand using a few magical items."

"What the fu-"

"The giant golem you're staring at you idiot!" Sheffield yells at me, preempting my question. "Just... Be a good boy for once and let yourself be killed, okay?"

"But I don't want to die!"

"And I don't want to deal with you again, but we're all making sacrifices today," Sheffield says.

Louise actually chuckles.

"Who's side are you on?" I ask.

"Sorry," Louise says, not really sounding like she means it. "That was actually pretty good. I'll have to remember that for later."

Any further conversation was stopped by me tackling Louise out of the way. Louise doesn't even get a chance to think of a question, as the ground we had been standing on just sorts of explodes, courtesy of the colossus smashing the ground.

"Shit that thing moves fast!" I observe.

"Get off me already!" Louise says while pushing me off her.

"Okay, as captain, I command someone to do something!" I say while standing back up.

"Aye aye, captain," everyone responds less then enthusiastically.

They all begin chanting some words and building up a spell. Kirche waves her wand and fire flows from the tip of her wand and begins coating the colossus. Tabitha waves her giant stick and casts Ice of Babylon to begin an endless assault on the thing. Guiche throws rocks at it. Magic throwing, but still. Boo.

The fire, icicles and magic rocks all converge on a single point on the colossus...

And then they all get reflected right back at us.

"Oh god, we're all going to die!" I cry out before covering my head and getting behind Guiche.

The magical death never comes, for one reason. Tabitha, being the badass she is, seemed to have expected something like that, as she already had a massive wind spell built up. A quick twitch of her wand, and a huge gust flows through the air, throwing all that death off course, and hitting nowhere near us.

"Tabitha, you're awesome," I make a note of telling her.

"H-hey! What are you doing behind me?" Guiche asks me.

"I think I dropped a coin or something. I think it rolled back here or something."

"That aside-"

"Move!" I say, interrupting Kirche. Prompting them to notice the colossus fist about to crush us.

Luckily, none of us had to move. Slyphid got to play the role of the big damn hero, and grabbed all of us at almost precisely the last second.

"Slyphid! When'd you get here?" Louise asks as we all fly away on Slyphid.

"Irukuukuu dropped everyone off at the ship and came to pick big sis and her friends up!"

Ah, so we're just "big sis's friends." I see how it is.

"As I was saying," Kirche continues, now that the imminent death has been postponed ever so slightly. "Why did our magic just bounce right off it?"

"You didn't notice?" Derflinger pipes up from his sheathe on my back. "That thing's got counter."

"Counter?" Louise asks. "Like that elf?"

To check, I turn on HA and scan the colossus. Like Bishounen before it, the golem does have an outline of sorts around its neutral aura. Unlike Bishounen, this outline is completely solid, no fizzling here. Probably means nothing's getting past that one. Oh joy. I wasn't looking forward to punching steel as it was anyway, so this works out.

"So if it has counter, what do we do?" Guiche asks.

Well besides sacrificing Guiche to it, we could always-

"The missy's magic is the only thing that can get past that ancient magic," Derflinger tells us.

"Missy as in Louise?" I ask to confirm.

"Obviously."

"And you didn't tell us this when we fought the elf because..."

"You seemed like you were handling it pretty well, if I do say so," Derflinger responds.

"Right. So, Louise. Think you can make an explosion strong enough to blow that thing to smithereens?"

"That thing's huge!" Louise complains. "That's impossible!"

So's the fact that we're still alive so far. I briefly wonder why that is, then it hits me. Not the colossus, we'd be dead. The explanation is what hit me. That thing is huge, and to it we're about the size of a house fly, especially flying around on Slyphid. When have you ever been able to keep an eye on a fly for 100% of the time? The thing's still looking for us now, actually. We take this opportunity to land on a small outcropping a bit aways from the thing to let Slyphid rest.

"So what do we do?" Kirche asks. "We can't just leave and go to the Ostland, it'd likely follow, and then we're putting everyone in danger.

"I know, just let me think for a minute," I say.

_Okay, think this through, Springfield. All our magic bounces off of it, except for Louise's. Louise could cast explosion on it, but I doubt she'd be able to do much damage, as she basically said, though not in so many words. Dispel? I guess that could possibly remove the counter, but then what? So our attacks can hit, it's still giant and made of solid steel. I don't think Kirche can make fire hot enough to melt steel, Tabitha's ice is too fragile, and Guiche can't do anything of use. Illusion is useless so let's not bother. Damn it! Think! How do you take out a colossus? Wander had a magic sword to point out the weak points and then climbed up and stabbed it. I'm neither Wander, nor do I have a magic sword, quite the opposite. That option's out. Okay then, how'd Kratos... Heeeello. _

"Okay, I think I feel an idea forming," I tell the group. "Louise, you sure you can't just blow up the whole thing in one go?" She shakes her head. "Just checking. Think you can punch a hole in the thing? A hole big enough for, say, a human to fit through? Or at least peer in?"

Louise eyes me curiously. "Yeeeah, I think so. That shouldn't be too much a problem. Why are you asking me this?"

"Okay, Guiche, can you use earth magics and make me a small knife, just in case?"

"Yeeeeah, why are you asking?" Guiche says.

"Louise, do you think you could sort of coat that knife with a dispel, without actually dispelling the knife itself?"

"Possibly?" Louise says.

"Kirche, Tabby-"

"Tabby?" Louise and Kirche ask simultaneously.

"I knew a cat named Tabby, Tabitha reminds me of her. Long story, explain later. Kirche, Tabby, can you two distract the golem safely and protect Louise longer enough for her to cast the explosion spell we need to punch a hole in the golem?"

"Yeah, why are you asking?" Kirche says.

"Slyphid, you ready to fly again?"

"Yep!" She says enthusiastically.

"Okay everyone, here's the plan and I hope it'll work."

Then I explained the plan. I'd explain the plan to you, but that'd be guaranteeing that it fails, so I'll refrain from that. After I explained the plan to the group, there was a brief bit of silence.

"You're serious," Louise says.

"I'm always serious," I reply.

"That's what worries me."

"Do you _really_ think this'll work?" Guiche asks.

"Of course not! And that's why I know it'll work!" I tell him.

"That makes absolutely no sense," Louise sees fit to tell me.

"Agreed," Tabitha affirms.

"Well, it's either we try the stupidly dangerous plan likely to get us killed, and we don't try the stupidly dangerous plan and still likely get killed. Come on guys, we have plenty of options here," I tell them.

They're silent for a minute. I take that minute to notice that the 17th colossus of Rhodes is still looking for us. Oh hey! It just tore down a giant rock structure to try and find us! That's cute.

"I think this is a terrible idea," Louise says sourly. "But it's the only one we've got that doesn't involve us rolling over and dying."

"Awesome. Time for plan A!"

"What's plan B?" Guiche asks.

"Punch it to death. And if plan B doesn't work, we move onto plan C: run like hell."

With that out of the way, Guiche made the knife out of Earth like I told him too and Louise cast a dispel coating on the knife. Lo and behold, the knife's still here, just sort of glowing a little. All according to plan. Then we all hopped on Slyphid and flew towards the colossus.

"There's so much wrong with the idea of flying _towards_ the towering death golem," Louise says.

"Not a statement I plan on denying," I reply. "Now get chanting, princess."

Louise shoots me a quick glare but grips her wand and starts chanting explosion. I feel my bravery stat jump up a few ranks, but all that does is convince me this is a fantastic plan. I'd say the same effect can be achieved with a little alcohol, but by that point I'm mixing up my bravery and stupidity stats.

Also, by this point the colossus has noticed us and has started swing at us. Thanks to a few well placed wind spells by Tabby, the blows were blown off course, missing us, if just barely. Kirche helped out by casting a few fireball spells here and there to try and keep it off balance, to admittedly little effect. There was still an effect, so it all works out.

"This is rather harrowing," I remark. "Shall I sing a lovely tune to build our spirits?"

"How about no," Guiche remarks.

"Oh, so you'd prefer a duet! Or would you need to be completely shitfaced before that begins to seems like a good idea?"

"What does that even mean?"

"Tell you later," I remark as a colossus arm miss Slyphid by mere inches. "Crap that was close."

"How long do her spells usually take?" Guiche asks.

"It varies. Sometimes they're done like that," I say with a snap. "Other times they take way too long."

"EXPLOSION!"

"This is somewhere in the middle," I say as Louise's explosion tears into where the colossus's neck would be.

"Did it work?" Tabitha asks.

We all try to peer through the fog to see if it was affective.

"Bingo! I can see the inside of the colossus!" I announce. "My turn! See you 'round! I'll try not to die!"

Then I proceeded to jump off Sylphid, aiming myself at the colossus. Best. Plan. Ever.

Luckily for me, Slyphid did fly close to the thing's shoulder so we could get that good look, so I didn't fall very far at all. After landing on the thing's shoulder, I tighten my grip on the knife and unsheathe Derflinger. With some difficulty I stab Derflinger into the colossus' shoulder to keep myself from falling off, using him almost like a cane as I make my way for the hole Louise opened up.

When I reach the hole, I peer in. What was inside the giant steel golem? Nothing. It was completely hollow.

"Sorry partner, I don't see anything in there," Derflinger says. "Still, it was a good plan."

"You're forgetting Derflinger, my senses are a little better then yours."

I close my eyes, and when I open them, the world goes blue. I look into the hole again, and the hollow inside of the colossus isn't what greets me. Instead, I see the "skeleton" of the thing. Not a skeleton in the traditional sense, but an entire circuitry of magic and energy, moving flowing around in paths that resemble a human's bone structure.

"Okay," I say as I give the knife a twirl. "Let us begin the operation!"

For my first experiment, I am going to test the results of an anti magic weapon an a magical skeleton! Considering I'm peering through a hole on the inside of the "neck," that means the bone structure I'm looking at is likely the neck bones, duh. I aim for between the vertebrae, and toss the knife. It flies as straight as a dart and pierces the glowing pathway of sorts until it's submerged to the hilt.

Everything freezes for a minute, then the colossus roars, as if in great pain. I tighten my grip on Derflinger to avoid being thrown off.

"Okay, operation: Holy shit this was the worst idea ever can now begin!" I say as I regain my footing. "Let's go!"

And with that I leap through the hole, my aim being the knife I tossed. I manage to reach it, and grab on. I try to use the magic that the knife is imbedded in as a foothold to steady myself. Then I find out that it's ****ing magic, and you can't touch magic. The fact that the knife is stabbing anything is a miracle of the universe as is. As it stands, I am currently inside a massive structure dangling by the small knife that is inside the object of unknown strength and hold. There are so many ways this can go wrong, I almost feel like laughing.

"At least I have two blades," I mutter. "Come on Derflinger," I say as I stab him into the magic highway to give me another handhold. "Make yourself a little more useful, and keep me from dying. Please."

"Given the stupidity of this idea, I make no guarantees," the sword responds.

"Thank you. Alright, the two most vital organs of the human body are the heart and brain I believe. As such, since this skeleton seems to be based slightly off of human anatomy, those places should be the highest concentration of energy slash control center. Since I'd rather go down then up, I say go for the brain first, then go down for the heart. Let's get climbing."

And so began my journey of climbing up this skeleton. Sword over knife, one after another. Oh, and the damn thing wouldn't stand still for just a few seconds! What a dick! Here I am trying to end its technical life and it won't make things easy for me! Some giant metallic creatures just have so sense of decency.

In any case, since I was on the neck and not too far away from the head, the skull wasn't that much of a climb.

"Derflinger, you're a sword. What's the easiest way to disable the brain?"

"Just because I was made to cut things doesn't mean I know the best way to cut things," Derflinger replies.

"Useful. I suppose if we sever the 'grey matter' connecting the 'brain,'" _and I stop using so many mental 'air quotes,'_ "then that would work. Just got to work our way over there."

You know, this whole, "killing a giant metal death machine from the inside by systematically taking down it's operating system" sounds cool on paper, but is actually really slow and annoying. I mean, I _could_ go faster, and I _could_ decide to fall and break every bone in my body, but that would kind of ruin my plans for next Saturday.

After that painfully slow crawl, I make it to the center of the brain. I then take Derflinger out, leaving me hanging one handed from a small knife above a fall that would kill me instantly. Fun.

"Okay, you're confident in your cutting abilities, right?"

"Of course!"

"Let's test that!" And so I swung Derflinger. With one clean strike, the small amount of magic tissue connecting one brain mass to another is severed, and the two halves slowly start to fall apart.

After that, the whole thing starts shaking. Violently. In fact, I felt like a rag doll. After a rather sickening pop and a sudden pain, I'm made painfully away that I may have just dislocated my shoulder. Wait, lemme check. OW! Okay, no maybe about it. I'll fix that later. And that was my final thought before the colossus's shaking caused the knife to slide right out of where it was inserted. I'd have thought something like "shit" or "crap" or "Yay! I'm gonna die!" But considering that shake also sent me flying as well, thinking wasn't a luxury I had the time to appreciate or use.

After I was sent flying by this damn thing's constant movement I flew right into the side (inside?) of the things head. If this had been a cartoon or a more comedy/slapstick based life of mine, I would have just slid down with minimal injuries and maybe been able to catch onto that hole I entered, pull myself out and let the colossus just sort of spasm until it died.

And yet, life is rather cruel. I didn't got off that scot-free. The impact alone at least broke my nose, if the sharp pain and torrent of blood from there is any indication. Not to mentioned the slightly sharp pain whenever I breathe probably means a few broken ribs. I'm still breathing, so at let my lungs and heart are fine. A sharp pain in my skull means either headache, or I've also fractured my skull. I am ten shades of screwed up at the moment. Also, instead of sliding, I got to peel off and start falling head over heals, over and over. I lost count of how many f-bombs I dropped during those few seconds.

In a desperate bid at life, and praying to all gods I could in those few seconds to make my luck stat EX just long enough for me to survive, I reached out my free hand. Also known as the hand that belonged to the arm with a dislocated shoulder, but I'm not picky.

I grabbed onto something. Woo! Rank EX luck stat! Hell yea- OH GOD MY ARM!

That something I grabbed onto was the bottom of that hole I entered. Maybe my life is more slapstick then I thought. Wait, no, the sudden stop of grabbing onto that after falling seems to have either broken my wrist or dislocated it, I'm not sure. My poor, poor left arm. DAMN IT, I'm still not done! Where's that knife?

I sharp twinkle above me indicated the falling knife. Oh joy! How'm I gonna catch that? Oh, wait. I don't need Derf at the moment. I sheathe Derf, and catch the knife with the hand I'm not using to support my life. Oh, and of course I caught the knife by its blade. I slightly cut my hand, but that's about it. It wasn't even a deep cut. I aim slightly, and toss the knife fore the mass of energy that'd form the colossus's heart. It pierces it through, and the thing goes still.

"Yay?" I ask as I dangle for my life.

As I watch the magic circuit, it all starts just sort of dissipating. It seems to just sort of blows away in the wind. Never before have I been so happy to see something hollow.

_Thank everything!_

Then the colossus starts to tip ever so slightly forward.

_Goddamn everything!_

I toss the knife down to give me another hand to pull myself up. Far more effort then is required later, I do manage to complete a single pull up and pull myself out through the hole. As I stand on the colossus's shoulder, I look for my way to avoid being on this thing when it falls down.

"Hey! I wish to escape now!" I shout out.

Luckily, a phrase I love using as it makes me remember my EX luck, I spot Slyphid flying overhead, everyone on her.

"Save me please!" I yell at them. Considering this thing's going down fast, I take a gamble. I go with a running start and when I reach the edge of the thing's shoulder, I leap into the empty air.

_OhgodI'mstupidohgodI'mstupidohgodI'mstupidohgodI'mstup-_

*thud*

"You idiot!"

"I'm alive!" I exclaim as I hug the pinkette next to me as tightly as I can.

"G-get off me you stupid familiar!" Louise yells at me before doing absolutely nothing to push me away or deny the hug.

Oh, Guiche, Kirche and Tabby were there in Slyphid, obviously. And we all got to watch as the 17th colossus of Rhodes fell to the ground and lied still. And good riddance you horrible thing.

"Oh right! Hugs later. Louise, you mind grabbing my arm?" I ask her as I let her go.

"Huh? You mean, like this?" She says as she hugs my arm.

"Something like that. Okay and, twist!" There's a slightly less sickening pop then earlier, and my arm feels a bit better. "Ah, thanks. I needed that."

"Y-you dislocated your arm?"

"Shoulder," I correct. "And probably my wrist. That or it's broken. Nose has seen better days, though the bleeding seems to have stopped, but my head still hurts like hell, and things are still kind of spinning, and I think I'm either seeing double images, or I've learned to see into alternate timelines," I say, going through the checklist of injuries. "In fact, I think I'll take a nap if that's cool."

Then I closed my eyes, leaned against Louise and fell asleep instantly. Or lost consciousness. Meh. Same result, different terminology.

***Scene Break***

When I woke up I was in a bed, in a fancily furnished room. My head was wrapped in bandages, as was my wrist. They also both were in much less pain then earlier. Yay.

_Okay, judging by the fact that everything is swaying ever so slightly, I'ma say we got to the Ostland just fine, and I got a medics whose names start with a "T" and an "M" to help me out. Yay. I'll have to thank them later._

I broken from my thought train by the sound of light breathing coming next to me. I look and see Yunica curled up in a ball, asleep, right next to me.

"... Well, nothing surprises me anymore, so I'll just accept this." Probably heard I was hurt/dying and refused to leave. That's how little sister types work, right? I honestly don't know.

I proceeded to get out as stealthily as I could. When I was out of the bed and about halfway to the door, it opened up, revealing Louise standing there.

"You're up already," she states, the unexpected fact seriously shocking and completely astounding me.

"Well a captain can't stay asleep forever," I state matter-of-factly. "Oh, and shhhh. Yuca's still asleep."

A corner of Louise's mouth quirks upward at that. "That girl's rather fond of you, it seems."

I shrug. "I always did want a little sister. Either way, anything I missed?"

"Nothing major," Louise tells me. "The Jormundgand-"

"What?"

"That's what Sheffield called it, remember?"

"No."

"Shocking," Louise says dryly. "Either way, the Jormundgand died, you lost consciousness, and Slyphid took us back to the Ostland, where we are now. Montmorency used some healing magic to patch up the worst of it, and Tifa's been taking care of the more minor stuff. Me and Yunica have been helping out when we could."

Cool, I missed literally nothing. Though I might have to go topside though to mock Guiche and order him around to make up for lost time.

"Before you go do that, mind if I ask something?"

"Hmm? Go right ahead Louise."

"How'd you know that incomprehensibly stupid plan of yours would actually work?" Louise asks.

"Well I played this video game called God of War 2 where-"

"Wait!" Louise says. "I seem to have stopped caring."

"Ouch."

"Well how am I supposed to care about something whose basic concept I barely have a grasp of?" Louise asks.

"You could have worded it better."

"Better or nicer?"

"Both? Maybe?" I offer.

"I'll try for something better next time," Louise says. "Either way-"

Louise interrupts herself by taking that moment to lock me in a hug. My one weakness! Hugs! If we ignore my other weakness. Cat ears and ponytails, if you forgot.

"Um... Louise-"

"Don't ruin the moment," she says quickly. "You're the one that said 'hugs later,' didn't you? I think this counts as later."

Right, I did say that. I almost forgot. Ignoring that, I hug Louise back.

"I'm just happy you're still alive," Louise tells me.

"I try my best."

"Considering the ideas you come up with I find that hard to believe," Louise tells me. "Let's just go back to the academy and take a break for a while so you don't have to come up with any more stupid ideas to get yourself killed, okay?"

"You never know. I'm sure I can come up with a stupid and deadly idea no matter the place or circumstances."

"Then don't act on your ideas for a while, okay?"

"I don't know, I have a few ideas I've been meaning to act on, but there's currently a kid in the bed at the moment, so we can't exactly act on those."

Silence for a moment. I hope she clues in on the sarcasm.

"You perverted familiar."

"It _was_ a joke."

"If you say so. Still, just in case, when we get back, you'e sleeping on the floor for a while."

"... Damn everything."

I couldn't see it since we were hugging, but I could tell Louise was smirking. Don't ask me how I know, I'm just psychic that way. Also, it was kind of obvious, but whatever.

***Author Notes***

Uncreative: And then it turns out that it was all just a series of works written by her in an attempt to keep her memories of him alive and as a means of dealing with the depression.

Joshua: That is so unbelievably stupid. Even if it could be foreshadowed properly, which it can't, it still comes off as an incredible cop out. Stupid.

Uncreative: And that's why that ending never happened. Crap! We're on!

Joshua: We are? How can you tell?

Uncreative: See the red light? It's blinking. We're on. Ehem. Hello there everyone. Okay, first things first. No, I'm honestly not certain eagle vision could let you see the flow of magic. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

Joshua: And where'd that idea for a Jormundgand take down come from?

Uncreative: God of War, as pretty much stated in the story. I just felt like doing something slightly different from the "Make Louise jealous and blow things up," that happened in the novels, and the idea kind of fell into place. I probably could have written it a bit better, but I find myself saying that a lot.

Joshua: And Yunica showed up again.

Uncreative: ... I like writing her. I can confirm, and I'm dead serious this time, she won't be showing up again. Ever. At any point.

Joshua: Alright. And the support group?

Uncreative: When I was reading the novel again for some inspiration on where exactly to go I found that one scene with the support group. I found it too hilarious to pass up. That was a scene I had far more fun writing then I should have.

Joshua: I think we about covered everything.

Uncreative: If we didn't then we at least covered the important parts. Either way, we're about done. See you all next chapter.

Joshua: See ya.


	14. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13: Road Trip part 3: The Long Road to Not-Rome**

It's been about a month or so since that whole thing with the 17th Colossus of Rhodes. Obviously stuff has happened between then and now, but nothing I feel like going into detail about, so I'll skim. Tifa transferred to the academy, hiding the fact that she was an elf, obviously. Word got out due to an accident or something, and some chick named Beatrice or something like that launched an inquisition. Can't say I expected to see that on a school campus. Guess you never expect Halkegnian inquisitions. Their chief element is surprise after all. Surprise and fear.

In any case we put a stop to that quite quickly, and now everyone loves Tifa, regardless of elf blood. Hell, people started hitting on her and asking her out! I suspect it has less to do with her pleasant personality and more with her possessions that starts with an "H" and end with "uge melons," but whatever. I wish her the best of luck in her endeavors.

But that's the past, and the past is long gone. Or, about a month gone, as the case may be. Hmm. I need to think about that one.

Disregarding that, it was another peaceful day at the academy. The weather was bright and sunny, and I was busy trying to will it to rain.

"Why do you want it to rain so badly?" Louise asked me as I continued trying to will a weather change.

"I like rain. And we've gotten, like, none of it. Ever. At any point. You notice that? The whole time I've been here it hasn't rained once. That sucks!"

"That's because we were in Albion during the season where it's most rainy in this area," Louise explained.

"That was winter!"

"Exactly. Around that time the academy gets a pretty even mix between rain and snow."

"And we missed it!" I exclaim. "Damn war!"

"If it makes you feel any better around this time it also gets a little rainy."

"Yes!" I say with a pump of my fist.

"Yo! Josh! Louise!" I hear my personal maid unit, Emily 01, call from somewhere behind us. "Letter just arrived for you two!"

"Really?" Louise asks. "What's it say?"

"I don't go through people's mail!" Emily declares indignantly. "What, you think that just because I'm the best information broker ever that I go through my master's mail whenever it arrives? I have standards when it comes to people's privacy, you know!"

"So what's it say?" I ask.

"It's a request from the princess. She wants you, Louise and Tifa to come to Romalia ASAP."

"To be fair, you never said they were very high standards," Louise responds.

"Not at all, miss!" Emily responds.

"Wait. Louise, it wouldn't happen to be Romalia's rainy season, would it?"

"No, sorry. Romalia doesn't actually get much rain in general," Louise says.

"... DAMN IT!"

"Well, that sucks," Emily says. "Okay, let's see. I'll obviously need the Hecate and my pistols, just in case, a few changes of outfit-"

"What are you babbling about?" Louise asks.

"Isn't it obvious? I'm coming too! I'm getting bored just sitting around here doing nothing!"

"And the _real_ reason is?" I ask.

"What do you mean _real_ reason?" Emily asks.

"If you were coming because you were bored, you wouldn't bring along an anti-material rifle and a pair of pistols."

Emily pauses. "Okay, I _may_ or may not have heard of a few interesting things coming from Romalia."

"Interesting how?" Louise asks.

"Starts with a 'V' and ends with another few letters," Emily says.

"You mean..." I start going through everything relevant to our interests that starts with a V. "Void! That was it! Something about void from Romalia?"

"What!" Louise says. "Surely you can't be serious?"

"I am serious! And don't call me Shirley," Emily says with a smirk. "Again, just a few rumors. Considering you two are going, I figure I'd take this moment to do a little field work for myself. Laziness dulls the trigger finger, you know?"

"No. No, I don't," Louise says.

"Neither do I," I offer. "I'm not overly fond of guns. Not my style."

"Either way, I don't see a reason I shouldn't come with. Everyone else is, right?" Emily asks.

"Let's see, Guiche, Momo, Tabby, and Kirche, anyone else?" I say as I go through the list.

"I imagine Colbert is probably getting nervous about us taking his ship out for a spin every other week without him, so we should probably at least invite him," Emily says.

"I see no reason not to," Louise says with a nod. "It certainly can't hurt."

"Right. Okay, let's get everyone together and pack up. Time for yet another road trip. Woo."

"Enthusiasm!" Emily shouts with a punch to the air before turning and running off to go pack.

"I'd say, 'at least she's enthusiastic,' but she appears to have that part covered," Louise says dryly.

***Scene Break***

*Whistle* I love this ship. I really do. Not to cargo shipping levels, but it's still such a lovely ship. It flies like a dream, it looks badass, it's got cannons for blowing shit to hell. All it needs is a badass banner to wave and we'll be good to go! God, it's good to be captain.

"I ask again, who named you captain?" Momo asked me on the top deck.

"Well I was elected unanimously and singularly," I respond.

"So you named yourself captain," It was a statement, not a question.

"No one seems to mind," I say with a shrug. "Besides, it's not like I'm abusing my own self-given authority."

"Thank the founder for that," Momo says.

"That reminds me," I say. "I honestly don't know much about this place's religion. What with it's founders and Brimirs and all that. Know anywhere I can get a quick fix of knowledge so I don't embarrass myself asking who the hell Brimir is?"

Momo nods. "That's probably smart. Romalia is one of, if not the most, religious place in Halkegnia." _... I'm going to hate it there._ "I think Colbert actually has a sort of mini library in here. You can start there. I'm sure there's something about the founder in there."

... We have a ****ing library on this ship? Well, that explains where Tabitha has been this whole trip. I got Montmorency to give me as best a set of directions as she can and make my way to the library.

"I'll be damned, there is a library on this ship," I muse as I step into the room lined with shelves. The shelves were lined with a bunch of books, as I probably shouldn't need to mention.

"Okay, where's the local Halkegnian bible?" I muse.

I believe I once mentioned I'm not overly religious. Honestly, whenever I'm asked about my religious affiliation I just sort of joke and say I'm either Haruhiist or Madokist. I'm mostly going over this because there have been a few occasions of people mocking me/calling me an idiot for not knowing the basic facts. Besides, it kind of interests me. I like how it's a founder, not a god of any kind. Plus the fact that Brimir was worshipped because he was a void user is interesting to me because I know two void users, and know of a third one. Hell, I'm the familiar of one! If the only qualification of being worshiped is to be a void user, I need to do everything I can to keep myself out of that! I hate people acknowledging me in general, as I've made clear, I don't want people years into the future setting expectations on me that there's no way I can reach. Mostly because I'm dead by then, but whatever.

"Okay, this thing looks rather bibley," I say as I pull out a small hardcover book from the shelf. I flip open to a random page and skim through.

"... Squiggles. It's nothing but weird squiggles," I note.

Okay, apparently whatever insanely useful and convenient magic auto translates all speech for me doesn't apply to text. Well. That sucks. And ruins all my nefarious plans.

The sound of paper shuffling draws my attention to the side, where I notice Tabitha sitting in the corner reading a book. Or she was, but she's apparently got a radar that detects people's gazes as she looks up from her book and looks me in the eye.

"..."

"..."

"Hi Tabby."

"Hello Josh."

...

We are the best at conversation.

"Do you read often?" Tabitha asks me.

Holy shit! Tabitha just started a conversation! Well, technically you could say I started it because I said hi first, but who cares! Tabitha posed a question!

"I read a fair amount back home," I admit. "Mostly recreational, though roughly 40% of it was required reading that I needed to do for school."

"I see," Tabitha says with a nigh imperceptible nod.

"I'd continue reading here, but apparently I am incapable of reading these squiggles that apparently makes up this world's alphabet."

"This world?" Tabitha asks.

... Damn, was that still a secret?

"Apparently I never mentioned that. Sorry. Yeah, I'm from a different world then this one. As such, I have no idea how to read any of this."

Tabitha is silent. That's normal for her, but it still kind of unnerves me. It didn't seem like her normal silence. It seemed more like she was hesitating, then choosing not to speak. No hesitating Tabby! Pick a path and charge down it full steam, tearing down all obstacles in your way! That's how our team rolls!

"If you like, I could help teach you," Tabitha says eventually.

"As in, teach me how to read and become literate by this world's standards?" I ask to clarify, choosing to ignore that Tabitha is offering something that would result in her doing more talking.

Tabitha nods.

"Awesome. Then I'm in your care, teacher!"

***Scene Break***

And... that was quick! I've already grasped pretty much everything I need to be literate! According to Tabitha speculah, the factors for that may have been my being from another world combined with the gandalfar runes sort of directly imprinting the meaning of the words into my mind. All I had to say to that was I sure as hell wish I had that back home, I might not have almost failed Japanese.

Ignoring my wishes to basically be able to cheat my way to an easy "A," this did mean I could do my research properly and without interruption. Since I could read now, I was able to pick up the closest thing this world has to a bible. Turns out the book I first picked up was a cook book. Who would've thought.

"Okay, let's see," I said as I opened up the book while I lied down on the bed in the room that was pretty much mine and Louise's. "Just some skimming shouldn't hurt that much.

Okay... Holy void magic, founder of our world as it is today, four familiars of which only three are know, holy land, yadda yadda yadda.

"What are you doing?" Louise asked as she came into the room.

"Considering we're apparently going to the religion capital of the world, I thought I'd do some research so I don't seem like an idiot. That and I've been curious about it for a while."

"So how's the book treating you?" Louise asks.

"Frankly my dear, it's boring as all hell," I say honestly. "I mean, listen to this. Ahem. 'Doubtless of any other accomplishments, the founder Brimir is, and always has been, best known for his crusade against the elves and his uncanny charisma and ability to turn even the most hostile of enemies to his side.' Who writes this crap? What, did he have some kind mind control object?"

"Be lucky you're surrounded by friends who won't have you tried for blasphemy," Louise remarks.

"Luck's one thing to call it," I say before returning my attention to the book. "Geez, it doesn't even tell you anything about the previous void familiars except what they could do!" I say as I give the book a good, hearty slap.

"Don't slap books, you'll get a paper cut," Louise says. "And they don't say anything about void familiars because we don't know anything about them."

"What about the fact that Gandalfar is a weapons user? Or that Myoznitnirn is a user of magical artifacts? Or that Windalfar, or vindalfar, the translations are a bit iffy, has control over beasts? That's not knowing anything?"

Louise is silent. "Okay, point taken, but that's all we know."

"Bah. I wanna know more about my predecessor!" I complain. "Oh well, the book was boring anyway," I say as I toss the book onto the desk.

"I imagine a lot of people want to know," Louise says. "Why not just ask Emily? I'm sure she can tell you. She knows everything else, after all."

"What do I know?" Emily asks as she walks in.

"We were just discussing the previous gandalfar and noticed that the book about Brimir says nothing about it. Anything info you would like to share?" I ask.

"Sure. I believe her name was Sasha. Full blooded elf, unlike Tifa who's only a half elf. Nice girl, I believe. Had a spirit sword that could transfer it's abilities and consciousness to any other sword. Brimir loved her, if I recall. Didn't stop the giant genocide against the elves, or her stabbing him through the heart after he summoned her as Lifdrasil, the fourth void familiar, to aid the genocide, but what can you do," Emily says with a shrug.

"... What," I say.

"W-what are you talking about!" Louise exclaims. "G-genocide? Lifdrasil? Make sense, maid!"

"Ah, you're right," Emily says. "It might be Yggdrasil. Either or."

"The Norse mythological world tree?" I ask. "Wait, Norse or Scandinavian? It's been too long, I can't remember exactly."

Emily raises an eyebrow in curiosity, while Louise just wonders what the hell I'm blabbering about.

"Oh, right. Mythology and history were the only two subjects at school I actually liked," I tell all present. "Greek mythology especially for the former, the crusades, the renaissance and the American revolution especially for the later."

"Who would've guessed this idiot's a history buff?" Emily says with a grin.

"Hey I didn't fail those classes! I'm not an idiot!" I protest.

"And those were probably the only ones you didn't fail," Louise remarks dryly.

The most hurtful part of that statement isn't that Louise said it at all. The most hurtful part is that it's true. Only mostly! I only failed Japanese, everything else was a solid "D" or higher! I swear!

"Well, whatever," Emily says as she dismisses my protest. "That was all mostly speculation I've put together after going through about 30 novels worth of rumors and supposed 'evidence.' Yggdrasil's something I sort of put together. After all, there is speculation that Yggdrasil was made to genocide the elves, and that the familiar would die in the process. Cut down the world tree, watch everyone fall off."

"Lifdrasil's easier to spell," I counter.

"Either works," Emily says with a shrug.

***Scene Break***

Ignoring all of that, eventually, meaning after several days, we did reach Romalia, docked the ship and the whole group went ashore.

I let out a low whistle upon stepping onto the ground. "Nice place. Nice, clean. Some waterways here and there. I like the architecture. Quite a few tall buildings and it looks easy to climb."

"Do you size up everywhere you go by how easy it'd be to climb?" Louise asks me.

"Well if I ever need an easy way out of a sticky situation, it helps to know your escape routes, right?"

"Right!" Emily says as she slips her pistols into the holster under her skirt.

"Where's the sniper rifle?" I ask.

"I'm leaving that on the ship for now," Emily says. "It'd look a bit weird if I was walking around with a giant other-worldly gun hanging off my back, wouldn't it?"

"Not gonna deny that," I say. "Having a sword hanging off of my back probably isn't going to do me any favors, but whatever."

"Hey!" Derflinger says from his sheathe. "I'm a talking sword! How can I not do you any favors?"

I ignore the sword that only pops out to complain or deus ex machina.

Oh, and the dock we parked at had a trio of guards. As it probably should, admittedly. The three walked up to us in a line. All three were heavily armed and heavily armored. The one in the middle, wearing a pair of glasses, seems to be the leader, as he pointed at the Ostland and was the first to speak.

"Students of the Tristain Academy of Magic," he official begins. "What is with that ship? It seems different compared to others."

I'd question how he knows we're from the academy of magic, but everyone except me and Emily is wearing some kind of uniform from there, so I guess it's kind of obvious. I mean, Tifa was wearing a fancy hat to hide her elf ears, but that's really not enough to throw people off that much.

"It's a new kind of ship I developed in Germania," Colbert responds.

"And on those wings, what is with the bladed turrets?"

"Pretty sure they're called propellors," I say, adding a silent, sarcastic _genius_ to the sentence. That earns me a glare from the official. I feign an innocent expression and try to convey peaceful imagery through some type of psychic power, likely pyrokinesis. I don't think it worked. Luckily Colbert is there to draw fire from me.

"The propellors provide propulsion through the power of steam," Colbert says, drawing the official's attention.

"Without using the holy magic of god, you dare fly through the skies with this machine. Is this not heresy?"

At the word "heresy," the other two guards grab ahold of some type of item hanging around their neck. Probably something that's the equivalent of a rosary or something similar. I would have been able to tell you what the item was, but I was too busy laughing. Ridiculously hard. I actually doubled over and had to hold my stomach, I was laughing too hard. This drew glares from all three guards, and worried looks from my group. Well, I guess Tiffania was the only one looking worried, as she was holding onto the brim of her hat and pulling it down over her had, as if to make herself disappear into it. Everyone else was a mix of "Oh shit, we're dead," and "you are a complete idiot."

Eventually I manage to calm down, and stand up straight and look at the official. The official who looks ready to just rip my throat out. That kills my laughter dead in it's tracks. Not because he was scary, but because the realization hit me.

"My god, you're actually serious," I say.

"And what god might you be referring to?" The official asks.

"... Madoka?" I offer, hoping they can recognize attempts at humor.

"A heretic!" The official declares, drawing his sword, prompting the others to do the same.

"S-stop! Please!" Tifa says. "We don't want to fight!"

That draws the official's attention. ... Oh, this'll end well.

"You," he says, sheathing his sword for now. "Let me see that hat."

Tifa responds by freezing up and trembling awkwardly.

"Wh-what?" She says as she grabs the brim of her hat.

"Did you not hear me? I said I want to see that hat. Did you not hear me?"

"Fantastic!" I cry out. "Wearing hats is heresy! What's next? No skirts shorter then 2 feet? Boy, that day'll suck."

"You be silent, heretic!" He yells at me. "I'll deal with you next."

*CLANG*

My response was slamming the heads of the guards flanking him into his own, knocking all three unconscious. Thank you upper body strength!

"And I'm done dealing with you," I tell him.

"Josh," Louise begins.

"I know. Let's go before they wake up and report us for assault."

And so we left the unconscious men there and headed into the city of Romalia.

"Is everyone in this city that..." I look for the right word.

"Religious?" Momo suggests.

"Idiotic?" Emily offers.

"Scary?" Tifa adds.

"Some combo of the first two," I respond. "Seriously. They're like the people who had Galileo excommunicated because he suggested that the Earth orbited the sun, not the inverse. 'He thinks different then us! Kill him and say our religion was right!' And so Pope Urban VIII condemned the dude, but you know who had the last laugh?"

"Galileo?" Colbert says, questioningly.

"Well, actually it was the pope when Galileo died in poverty and dishonor, but what I'm saying is, hindsight and religion don't mix. The crusade seemed good at the time. The templars were all gung-ho about 'Woo! Killing in the name of religion! Yay!' Now everyone sees the templars as being idiots for slaughtering a ton of people for no discernible reason. The fact that it was later seen as sinful by the very religion the crusades were fought for probably didn't help."

"And what does this have to do with you wondering about the people of this city?" Louise asks.

"Who knows?" I say with a shrug. "What I'm trying to-"

"You!" A guard and his partner say as they come up to me. "Don't you know that carrying a weapon out in the open is-"

*CLANG*

The two slump to the ground, sunlight reflecting off the dents in their helmets.

"Say is, the longer we stay here the likely we are to get prosecuted by the pope for some inane reason."

"I'm more worried about being arrested for assaulting five guards," Louise says.

"Yeah, I have a feeling I'll be doing that a lot. Oh well. Anyone know where the pope lives?"

"Yeah, obviously," Emily says. "Follow me!" She says with much enthusiasm.

***Scene Break***

"This place is huge!" I say as we stepped into the... Guess cathedral is as good a word as any for it.

"I've never seen anything like it," Momo agrees.

"Meh. Seen one church you've seen 'em all," Emily says with a shrug.

"Princess!" Louise says upon seeing Henrietta. "We have arrived."

"And we even managed to not knock out too many guards on the way in!" Emily says with a grin.

"What?" Henrietta asks.

"Nothing, nothing," I say to steer the topic of conversation away. "Any food? We've been traveling for a while so..."

Henrietta nods. "Yes. They've already prepared dinner for everyone."

It's that late already? I don't think it took us that long to get here. Ah well. For business reasons, apparently, Louise, Tiffania, Henrietta and I went to one room for dinner and everyone else left for another. Must be super secret stuff.

Henrietta led us to the the room where we'd be having dinner. And there'd we have a nice dinner and-

"Oh for ****'s sake, what's this asshole doing here?" I ask as I point out the asshole already sitting at the table.

"Ah! How nice to see you two again!" Julio says as he gets up from the table and walks over to us.

*pak*

"What was that for?" I ask Louise.

"Watch your language! We're in the midst of royalty and the pope!" She whisper/growls at me.

"Eh? Seriously?" Oh yeah, there is another guy here. I can tell he's the pope because his hat's stupid. ... I'm _pretty_ sure this is a dude. Hard to tell. He looks kind of feminine, and his long, blondish hair isn't doing him any favors. He had preistly-type robes, and the stupidest hat ever. The hat worn by the cat in the hat would look cooler than that. He was also wielding (that's the wrong word, isn't it?) a sort of staff. It was made of silver, with what looked like a ball at the head of it. The ball had one sort of spike of sorts sticking out the top, with two more poking out the side, giving off the shape of a cross. A nice piece of symbolism ruined by the other two pair of spike in line with and under the other side spikes.

"Oh, sorry your popeliness," I say casually. "Um... Nice pope stick?"

"It's okay," he says with a "gentle" smile. "And it's called, 'The Papal Staff.'"

Right, popes do get their own adjective. ... That stick-

"Well, we can't very well let this fantastic dinner get cold, now can we?" Julio says.

"Right! I am starving!" I say as I sit down at the table and proceed to dig in.

"... I apologize for his lack of manners," Louise says with a small bow before walking to the table and sitting at my right.

"..." Tifa seems a bit worried, but she sits down at my left anyway.

The pope sits at the head of the table far to the right, Henrietta sits at the tail end far to the left, and Julio sits just across from me.

And so, dinner was had. I fell like I was the only one that ate anything though. Henrietta seemed far too nervous to do much of anything, which rubbed off on Louise who proceeded to not eat much at all, and Tifa's been nervous this whole trip, so I'm not surprised. Julio and the pope just plain ate nothing. What, is it a requirement in this city to fast once a month?

"I'm sorry, we have not had formal introductions," the pope says. "I am Pope Aegis the 32nd, Vittorio Serevare."

"Joshua Springfield. Pleasure to meet you Mr. Aegis," earns me a slap from Louise for not showing proper respect.

"I am Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière. I am honored to make your acquaintance," Louise says with a bow.

"T-Tiffania Westwood."

"And you already appear to know my familiar, Julio," Mr. Aegis says.

"Met him once. Don't like him," I reply.

"I appreciate your honesty," Julio says with a smug grin.

"W-wait! Go back a second!" Louise says. "Wh-what's this about a familiar?"

In response Julio takes off his right glove and shows us a set of runes.

"Yep. Yeah, I've luckily reached the point of nothing surprising me anymore," I say, since Louise seems to stunned to say anything. "Since I'm Gandalfar, and Sheffield is Myoznitnirn, I take it you're the animal one?"

"I am indeed Vindalfar," Julio says, putting his gloves back on. "And I was indeed summoned to be his holiness's familiar through the miracle of void."

"... I'm the only alien here, right?" I ask to confirm.

"Josh!" Louise hisses at me.

"What? That's still not common knowledge? I would've thought everyone knew that by now," I say with a shrug.

"No need to worry," Mr. Holy says. "Rest assured that you are the only resident of another world."

Bitchin'. I'd hate to lose my one claim to fame.

"So, to clarify, your holiness is a void mage as well?" Louise asks.

"Yes. He is," Henrietta says. "I have seen it with my own eyes."

"Void certainly stopped being rare in the last few centuries, didn't it?" Louise says under her breath.

"Okay, so we have 3 void users and two void familiars sitting together eating dinner. ... Any particular plans for this set up, or did you just think it'd be a nice set up for a joke?" I ask.

"Yes. He wanted three users of a holy and forgotten magic and two of the most powerful familiars in history just because he thought it'd be nice to have them all together in a room for dinner. Good job Josh, you've been doing a lot of good thinking today," Louise says dryly.

"Regretfully, we are not here just for dinner," Mr. Pope tells us. "I did have an objective in mind that I wished to discuss."

Oh, dinner's not good enough? Maybe we'll go see a play as well.

"A-and what did you want to discuss?" Tifa asks.

"It's simple really. I wish to use the void that we have been blessed with and use it to reclaim the holy land," The pope tells us.

Silence. I feel like my reason for silence is different from everyone else's.

"Um... The alien is lost here. What's all this about holy land?"

"The..." Louise tries to start, but still seems to stunned to say anything. She slaps her cheeks a few times to psych herself up. "The holy land is the land that Brimir once traveled. These days however, it's occupied completely by elves."

"Those things we all fear for no reason?" I ask.

"Not for no reason," Julio informs me. "The elves... Ah, perhaps this is a conversation best saved for other company?"

It takes a second for that to click with me.

"You... You already know?" Tifa asks.

"I guessed," Julio says. "Now, there's no need to hide it anymore."

Tifa hesitates, then looks to me. ... Wait, why me?

"Why not?" I say with a shrug.

Tifa give a small smile, then removes her hat, revealing her pointed ears.

"Okay, now that another not-secret is out and we know what the holy land is, anyone want to clarify why we should get it back?" I ask.

"It is where we belong," The pope explains. "Why do wars exist? Why do the governors of this world, in short, us, declare war so easily with each other? Simply put, it is because of the loss of our destined land."

... Wow. Seriously? I mean... No. Just continue.

"The fact that our promised lands are currently conquered and occupied by an unknown population is... Unhealthy, let's say, for our people. As such, we lost confidence and began seeking cheap replacements. Pointless fights over countless lands. As such, we have bled a lot unnecessarily."

Pointless is probably the most fitting word for everything said here.

"Only by reclaiming the holy land and revealing the rebirth of this legendary power can we truly inspire the confidence needed to unite Halkegnia. When Halkegnia is united, there will finally be no more wars."

"I... Have a few words," I say, unsure of what exactly those few words are. I figure it out pretty quickly though.

"Hmm? You have questions about Halkgenia's-"

"Bullshit?" I cut off Julio.

_That_ shuts everyone up.

"M-Mr. Joshua... What did you just say?" Henrietta asks, the nervousness obvious in her voice.

"What, bullshit? It's the most fitting word for this. No, wait, second most fitting word. The other most fitting word would be 'crusade.'"

"I will not deny that," The asshole pope says.

"Okay, let's start with the 'bullshit' part. Ehem. Halkegnia will have no more wars after being united by reclaiming the holy land. Let's start with that idea that wars are happening because we're not in the holy land. The thing about humans is, they don't fight because of something, no matter how large that thing may be. They just use it as an excuse to fight. Put two humans together in an arena and tell them only one can get out alive, and to survive you need to kill the other. One will kill the other and justify it by saying 'it was kill or be killed.' That's false. Humans will tear each other apart at the drop of the hat, as long as they can pass the guilt to someone else. If a way to easily kill elves existed, no one here would do it, to dodge the guilt of killing. Let's fix that problem, let's call it a crusade! Yeah! Now nobody will bat an eye at my slaughtering of countless lives and even better, God'll forgive me in the end because it was all killing in the name!"

I pause to take a sip of my water and to let it sink in.

"So you are against the very idea of a crusade?" The asshole pope says, his tone indicating curiosity.

"Well it turned out so well for the templars in the 11th through 13 centuries," I tell them. "Seemed like a good idea at the time. 800 years later, it's seen as a vile sin against the religion the crusades were fought for."

"So you're saying hindsight and religion don't mix," Louise says while taking a sip of her cup. I think it was a hot chocolate or something.

"Nice call back, love," I tell her. "So yes, I'm against the idea of a crusade, especially one that just wouldn't work. Your idea is that a united nation won't go to war, correct?"

The pope nods.

"Sorry. Bullshit. I come from a small country called, the United States of America. Sounds great! United's right in the title! We're a big happy family! Oh, except for that little spat a few hundred years ago called the civil war that ended up creating more dead americans then practically every other war combined. And before we were our own country, we were pretty much owned by the British Empire, and as such was technically united with them. Then we disagreed about a few small things like how government should work because, shock and awe! People all have different opinions! Enough people's opinions match up and go up against the other opinion and fights break out! Nothing huge, admittedly, just the American Revolution that led to thousands of dead people and us gaining our independence in the end. Unity does not equal peace. The only way to achieve unity and peace is to control everyone's minds, the differing opinions will cause conflict on their own. Take away free will, achieve peace. Tell me, does that seem like a good idea?"

"If it achieves peace for Halkegnia, then yes," the pope says.

"So you don't care about anyone else's free will and desire to do as they wish? You'd gladly take all that away if it meant peace?"

"As I said. If it achieves peace, then yes," the pope reaffirms.

*CRASH*

A loud sound reverberates throughout the room, as my fist connects with the table. The sound of the thud, combined with the thundering of all the silverware causes everybody to jump slightly in their seat.

"I'm done. I hold little patience for complete idiots."

"J-Josh!" Louise calls out, but it's a bit too late, as I've already gotten up and left the room.

After I left the room, making sure not to slam the door on the way out (because that would be rude!) I walked down the hallway a bit, before deciding to stop and lean up against the wall.

I sigh in anger and frustration. "Damn everything."

I don't usually get this worked up over something. Must be calcium deficiency. I should have had milk instead of water. I might have kept somewhat of a level head.

"Josh!"

"Hm? Oh, Louise. Here to drag me back to apologize to everyone for flipping my shit in front of a queen and the pope?"

"I... I just want to talk about it a bit more," Louise says.

"You're not going to try and convince me, are you? Lemme tell you up front, that'll work real well."

"Shut up," Louise says angrily. "I wanted to check on you. I've never seen you that angry at something. Are you all right?" The anger that was in her voice melts into worry.

I sigh again. "Yeah. Yeah, it's just... Me and religion never really mixed. The concept never sat well with me. People ask, I just joke, otherwise I answer honestly and come across as a complete asshole. Regardless, the point is, I hate the idea of some kind of god sitting up there dictating what we do. I love the idea of free will and that I'm the one in control of what I do."

"Is that it?" Louise asks.

"Well that, and if we fight a crusade, we'd be fighting a crusade," I point out.

Louise opens her mouth to make some snarky remark, but I hold up a hand to stop her.

"Let me explain. We choose to fight this crusade, then that's me, you, and even Tifa being put in danger unnecessarily. If it was just me, I'd never do it. If it was just you and me, you'd probably drag me into helping the princess. I'd bitch and whine, but never really go any further or voice my opinion. Through Tifa into the mix, an elf herself, if only half, and who's only way of defending herself on her own is a spell that wipes memories..." I shrug. The rest should be obvious.

Louise is silent.

"Ah, voicing my personal opinion on this was probably a mistake anyway," I say. "No one listens or cares what I say anyway."

"... I care about what you say," Louise tells me.

"And you're probably the only one, even counting myself," I tell her.

"That's really sad."

"So I've been told," I say with a shrug.

"I've decided," Louise says with determination. "I'll go back and tell the pope we won't support his crusade against the elves."

"I thought I had that covered?"

"I'll go back and tell the pope we won't support his crusade against the elves in a way that won't get us arrested or executed," Louise corrects.

"Right. And... Well, I guess you can tell them I'm sorry. No point in burning bridges with people who can order an execution on us."

"I don't think you need to worry about Henrietta putting out an execution order," Louise says.

"Not her I'm worried about."

Louise simply scoffs and turns and walks back to the dinner room.

... I should have told he to let the pope know his staff was as stupid as his hat. The ball glowing was kind of a neat effect, but what purpose did it serve?

***Scene Break***

A day has passed since that little spat. We, meaning me, Louise, and Emily, got our own room. I woke up first, likely due to the knocking on our door.

"What happened to the days where I could just sleep in?" I mumble as I pull myself out of the bed, over Emily, and to the door. I opened it to find the last person I wanted to see.

"Oh for ****'s sake, you again?" I tell Julio.

"Now, now, is that any way to greet a brother?" He tells me with a smug look on his face.

"... There something you're not telling me?" I ask him.

"Why should I call you anything different?" _Besides the fact that we share neither blood, interests, and the fact that I hate you._ "We are both familiars of the void, we should be more friendly to each other, should we not?"

"Hwah? Who's that?" Emily mutters as she pulls herself up. "Oh... It's that douche. Whadda you want?"

"I simply wished to take Josh here to see something I feel important," Julio explains.

"I wanna go too!" Emily says. "I wanna... Meh, too tired. Sleep now, fun times later. Have fun."

Then Emily lies down, pull the covers over herself and goes back to sleep.

"Well, lead the way," I say, giving a prompt for Julio to start walking.

And so he led me to the basement of that giant cathedral that served as the pope's house apparently.

"Ooooh, so dark and spooky here," I say, feigning fear. "What, trying to spook me into a crusade against ghosts? Sorry, don't believe in 'em."

"Few do," Julio admits. "No, what I had to show you was this."

And then Julio gestured to a door. An admittedly nice door, but still just a door. I break into applause.

"Oh dear god! It's amazing! The greatest thing ever! I'm so glad you woke me up to show me this! I'm so excited I could faint! Aaaaaand, I'm done."

"Good," Julio says with a smirk. "After all, what I wanted to show you was what was behind the door, not the door itself."

"Cool. You go first, so I'm a hundred percent certain you're not just trying to lock me in a dark room."

"But of course, good sir," Julio says with a bow. Then he opens the door and steps in, and I follow shortly after. My first observation?

"It's dark," I point out. Luckily I have night vision, which I active so I don't bump into anything.

"Don't worry, allow me to take care of that," Julio says before reaching for some kind of switch on the wall. He presses it, and all the lanterns hanging from the wall simultaneously light up. I deactivate HA to see just what all the fuss is about. I nearly fainted from awesomeness overload.

"Holy shit!" I exclaimed. "Weapons! So many weapons!"

The walls were just straight up _covered_ in shelves! Shelves everywhere! And each shelf had all sorts of weaponry on it! And not a single bit of it was Halkgenian! It all looked way too awesome for that!

"Though we cast a stasis spell to preserve them as soon as we found them, some are still unfortunately beyond repair," Julio informs me.

"What the hell is all this doing here? Wait, no, I don't care."

"I'll tell you anyway. These are all relics from the far east. More specifically, around the holy lands," Julio says.

"Well, that's interesting."

"Ah, but that's not all," Julio the used car dealer tells me. "There is another thing we have here. Follow me."

And so I did. I had a feeling I knew what he was talking about the second it came into view, but I was too busy wondering what the hell something like this was doing here.

"It's a goddamn tank!" I say as I soak in the view.

Hmmm. No. Tank is technically the right word, but it's no tank I've very seen. It's covered in white plating, and seems smaller then most tanks I've seen. I know tanks are multi man efforts, but this things looks like it could hold a maximum of three, and that might be stretching it. Still, the treads and cannon don't lie. A tank this be, and I tank I see. I walk up to it and put my left hand on it, and the gandalfar runes light up and tell me all I need to know. Hmmm. Interesting. This is knowledge I'll keep to myself, no need to mention it to anyone else yet.

"Wait. You're not going to give me some speech about how these otherworldly items are all from the holy land, and even some people like me babbling about another world have popped up from the east, are you?" I ask.

Julio chuckles. "I'll admit, I was preparing to inform you about that. I thought it would be something you would have liked to know. But you are saying this, 'tank' is also from your world.

... "Yes. Yes it is," I lie. "Still runs too. Not for long, it's rather damaged, but we could probably get a good battle out of it. Good luck getting it out of here." All of that was true though.

"We'll find a way. Still, it was not my intention to bring you to our side. Think of these more as a... Good will gift, shall we say. After all, they are all from your world, and as such you have more right to them then any of us."

Damn right son, now give me my tank.

"Not just that, but these do belong to you anyway. You are Gandalfar after all."

Damn right, gimme my tank.

And then Julio broke into this long winded exposition. Stuff about long spears and guns and the history of Gandalfar's use, it was really kind of boring. Shit, I wanted to learn more about that? It's so freaking boring! I let Julio keep on rambling as I let my attention wander around the shelves to see if anything caught my eye. And, well, something did. Something that really shouldn't be here.

"Holy hell, is that a grief seed?" I asked no one as I walked over to the shelves and picked up the little brass ball of despair and little girl souls.

"Pardon?" Julio asks, curious as to what the hell I'm talking about.

"Oh, nothing. Just don't let any magic near these things," I say as I show him the brass ball of death and evil. "Don't want any eldritch type, LSD inspired abominations popping out to eat everyone's souls. Word of warning."

I put the thing back on the shelf and look around some more. Holy hell, there's tons of stuff that shouldn't be here! Is that the Master Sword? An N7 Typhoon? Want. Want badly.

"You're welcome to stay and take what you like," Julio informs me. "Just remember to close the door on your way out."

And with that, he turns and leaves. I'd follow him or something to make sure he's not trapping me in here, but I see a Cain on the shelf way in the back. I can just blow my way out with my mini nuke if worst comes to absolute worst. Oh! C4! Hey, is that pokeball? ... Damn, empty. Figures. Probably doesn't work on anything either. A wrench? Well, someone's got to take care of the splicers here. ... Gunblade? Awesome, but a wee bit too impractical in terms of everything. Still neat though.

*Clank*

"Ow! Stupid old shelves," Says a voice that's not mine.

...

Well, I'm not surprised by anything anymore. The fact that someone managed to sneak in here doesn't surprise me. Let's go see who it is. A quick turn here, a right turn here, and I immediately came face to face with our mysterious intruder. A little white haired girl rubbing her head after what I assume was something falling on it.

"... Sarina, wasn't it?" I ask her.

She gasps in surprise and turns to face me.

"Oh... um... Hi, Josh," She says with a nervous smile.

"And, what are you doing here, may I ask?"

"Looking around."

"For what purpose?"

"Um... Um... What are you doing here!" She counters.

"Checking out the stuff. Some weird stuff here. 90% of it shouldn't exist, let alone be here."

"That happens. Timelines have an easy time merging and dropping off items in places they shouldn't," Sarina explains.

"Should I know what any of that means?"

Sarina freezes, as if realizing she said something she shouldn't. "N-no. No, you shouldn't, and I shouldn't have said anything."

"Riiiiight. I'm sure I'll forget about it in the next few seconds," I admit. "So, what are you doing here?"

"Looking for a birthday present for my friend," Sarina says as she scans the shelves.

"... So you look in a vault of otherworldly weaponry," I observe.

"She's a bit of a weapon's nut, so it seemed like a good idea," Sarina admits. Then she pauses, as if she got an idea. "Hey, you're gandalfar, right?"

"I suppose I should ask why you know that despite the fact that it's really not a secret," I tell her.

"I recognize those runes anywhere!" She says as she puffs her flat chest out and puts her hands on her hips. "Believe it or not, I'm an expert on void magic! I know everything there is to know! ... Probably!"

"Well, can't argue with that. I'll help find something nice for..." I prompt her for a name.

"Her name's Natalie."

"I'll help find something for your friend Natalie."

Sarina smiles. "Awesome! As payment, there's something around here I think you'd like. I'll give it to you when we're done."

"But I already have a solid weapon in Derflinger, not to mention I think I saw a katana or two back there."

"Well... I think you'll like it. And it's not like you have to take it," Sarina says with a shrug. "Oh! Before we get started though, I was asked to deliver a message, should I run into you again."

"Oh, and what's that?"

"Erm... I was asked to deliver it word for word, sorry, in advance," Sarina says.

"Wh-"

*SLAP*

"It's Eagle Vision you dolt!" Sarina yells at me.

"Wha-"

"Not battle mode, or heightened awareness, it's called Eagle Vision!" Sarina explains. "Sorry. The slap was part of the message."

... So you are capable of reading minds! ... maybe. I need proof first. ... Flat chest.

"Wha-wha-what! I'm still only like nine years old! They'll grow with time!" Sarina absolutely _screams_ at me, her face red and her arms crossed over her chest.

"... Josh: 1, Sarina : 0," I say with a grin.

It takes Sarina a second to realize what she just proved. She "eeps!" and shuts up.

"... Okay. You got me," Sarina admits.

Hmph. How's a nine year old learn to read minds?

"Well I could explain, but that'd take far too long and really doesn't have much to do with anything," Sarina says. "Come on, let's go get Nat's birthday gift."

And so we wandered up and down the shelves, examining things. Hey, is that-

"It is a plasma cutter!" Sarina says with a small amount of enthusiasm.

Does that thing even have any ammo?

"Yeah, I think so," Sarina says. "See? The ammo hologram says three."

*BANG*

"Gah!"

We drop the gun and dive for cover. Once we're certain it's safe, we pop back out.

"No," I say.

"Agreed."

"Okay. Let's keep looking and make sure we didn't cut anything important."

Hmmm. Think. What would she like? I started browsing. Partly for my own benefit as well. There's some neat stuff here. Hey, wait. I walk up to a familiar looking sword.

"This the Infinity Blade?" I wonder as I pick up the sword. Runes confirm it! God slayer acquired!

"Oh! It is! Would you please hand it over?" Sarina asks. "Nat'd absolutely love it!"

And so I handed the infinity blade, the blade that slays the gods, to a little girl. ... Am I an idiot?

"Probably," Sarina admits. "Still. Thanks. Now for that thing I promised. Come on!" She says before running off. I follow after.

"Hmmm. I know they were around here somewhere," she murmurs to herself as she scans the shelves. "Aha! Here they are!"

She picks up two bracers, I think they're called, and tosses them to me. I observe them for a second, then I notice Sarina motioning for me to slip them on. I slide one onto my left forearm. It fits pretty good actually. And it does... what exactly?

"Flick your wrist back," Sarina says as she does the motion. A motion I copy. And then a blade pops out of the bracer.

"Whoa!" I voice my surprise. Oh, and the blade popping out triggers the gandalfar runes, letting me know about this blade arm guard.

"Try 'em out for a bit, see how you like them," Sarina says with a smile. "They're called hidden blades."

Creativity was on back order when they were named, I take it.

"Well," I say as I slip on the other one. "I have to say thanks. This seems pretty neat."

"You're welcome," she says with another smile.

And so our business done, we wandered back down the halls, until we came up to the tank.

"One sec," I say as I walk towards the tank.

"What are you doing?" Sarina asks me.

"This tank intrigues me, so gimme a moment."

After approaching the tank, I check out the side and locate a switch. A quick flip and the top of the tank opens. I jump up and pull myself up to the top. I hop in and examine all the switches.

"What are you doing?" Sarina asks as she hops in after me. Good thing it was made for two. Where'd the sword go?

"I stabbed it into the ground and left it for now," She explains. "So what are we doing here?"

"Like I said, the tank interests me. My gandalfar instincts tell me that this thing is plot relevant," I tell her.

"Plot relevant?" She seems confused.

"Okay, maybe not to this plot, but I'm not really getting good feelings. Okay, what's this button do?"

I push and button and a monitor pops out of the console. It then shows a view of in front of the tank. I give a low whistle.

"Hi tech. So that's how they see where they're driving."

"Hey, what's that?" Sarina says as she points at something on the screen.

I look where she's pointing. The words, "Footage safely recorded. Play back? Y/N" are in a corner on the screen.

"... I say yes. How do we say yes?"

"Um... touchscreen maybe?" Sarina says as she pokes the "Y" on the screen. The screen goes black with a little rotating circle in the center, with the world "LOADING" underneath it.

"Even in the future we can't fix loading times," I remark.

Eventually the footage starts, despite my complaining. And we immediately see a guy get decapitated. His head, just sort of popped off.

"Aaah!" Sarina screams and buries her head into my arm. Squeamish, inn't she?

"I-I just don't do good with these things," she forces out.

Well, no helping it. I guess I'll just watch the video myself. After that happened, the tank moves forward, and a girl comes into view. I'd tell you what she looks like, but it's hard to make out details when she's completely covered in blood. I'm not exaggerating! She was blanketed in blood like she just jumped into a giant pool of it!

"Come on!" Bloody girl yells. "That all you ****ers got?"

The tank fires at her. A ball of condensed, explosive energy flies from the barrel and goes towards the girl. She hold her hand out and the ball stops in place. A quick flick of her wrist and the energy flies back at the tank. Luckily it can sort of quick dash to the side, but the ball can explode. It does as such, and the tank is flipped over onto its back. Luckily the camera auto corrects and flips everything over so it's still right-side-up. The girl walks up the camera, kneels down and smiles into the camera. Remember how I mentioned she was covered in blood? Yeah, close up it doesn't look better. Still can't make anything out. Her hair's long, but I can't make out the color. Can't make out the color of her shirt, or her skirt. Luckily her eyes don't have that problem. I never thought pink could be a scary color.

"Oooh! Cameras now!" The girl observes. Listening to her kind of scares me. Her voice is just filled with malice and hatred. It's almost like the voice of someone who's given up on everything. "I thought just making these tanks to take me out was enough, but now we're adding cameras too? Unbelievable! Well, might as well make a show, right? Camera's exist for a reason. Oi. Nameless guard #27. I need a costar, and you're the only one here. Help me out for a minute?"

She holds her hand out hand, then clenches her fist and pulls, like she's pulling something with a rope, and a guard flies into frame. The poor guy looks terrified.

"Come on, say hi to the camera!" The girl says, clearly enjoying the moment.

"Some... someone help. Please," he begs.

"Bah, that's no fun! Oh well. Come one. Let's put on a show for the camera! Hmmm. What would look good? Oh! I know! Oi. Got a knife?"

"N-no! Of course not!"

"Damn. I could have used that to make things easier. Oh well. Sucks for you. Some things are better when they're not done by me after all."

Then the guards shirt and armor tears itself apart around his midsection. A small red line appears on his stomach then... oh god. I... I never wanted to see a man's intestines before. Wait, it's not over yet. Oh god, is she-

"TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF! TURN IT OFF!" Sarina yells before she starts hitting the monitor with her small fists to stop it. She succeeds. And by that I mean she succeeds in breaking the glass of the monitor, effectively turning it off.

There's a silence as we look at each other, broken by the machine announcing "repair systems initiated."

"We're never mentioning that again," I tell her.

"Agreed," she says as she nods vigorously. "Agreed, so very much."

"Well, then let's get out of here. I think we've spent enough time in this boring cave."

"Also agreed."

I briefly wonder how she's going to get out. If she comes out with me there's the chance that we might have to explain to someone the whole "Oh, I found her in that weapon's vault that we're not supposed to really know about." That kind of won't work.

"It's okay," Sarina says. "I got in here without anyone know, getting out'll be easy."

"Right, see you around."

"Good bye."

***Scene Break***

With that chapter out of the way, I headed back for the room that me and Louise were currently using. Emily petitioned for her own room so she could conduct her info broker business in private. No one tried to stop her. We value our lives too much. When I entered the room, it was empty. Well, empty of people. The furnitures and stuff were still there.

"Where is everyone?" I wondered before noticing a note sitting on the desk the room came with.

_"Josh._

_Went with Tifa to have a discussion with the pope. Nothing incredibly urgent, so don't worry. Be back as soon as possible._

_Love-_

_Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière"_

How nice of her to leave a note. No idea when she left the note, so no idea when she'll be even close to coming back, but whatevs. ... I'm curious. I flick both my wrists back, and the hidden blades extend themselves. I hold them up a bit and examine them.

"Nice blades," I notice. "Hmmm."

I flick me right wrist to retract the blade, then flick it slightly differently. A hook type attachment unfolds from the armguard.

"Heh. Like having a swiss army knife attached to your arm," I note. "How could I use this hook well? Ziplining'll be easy. Maybe dragging people around a bit?"

Either way, I retract the hook and switch back to the regular blade. I start practicing. Hey, I feel I'm going to be using these a bit, better get used to using them, right?

I start going through some basic motions. A sort of left, right, one/two punch. But with blades coming out of my sleeves.

As I swung the blades around, I noticed something. Normally when I'm gandalfaring a weapon, yeah it kind of comes to me naturally, but at the same time I'm kind of aware that it's the runes telling me how to do it. Sure, some of it's instinct. _Swing here, dodge there, roll,_ things like that, but a lot of it's the runes sort of informing me on the proper method controlling the weapon. The hidden blades feel different. It's coming to me completely naturally. ... Clearly I was born to wield these hidden blades! It is in my genetic coding that I use these!

The practice continues a bit, just getting used to these things. My instincts act up when I hear a sound behind me. I turn around and swing down in a vertical line. A vertical line that nearly hit Louise. As it was, all it did was cut her shirt down the middle, cutting off all the buttons. Oh hey, it cut her camisole too.

...

Me and Louise just sort of stare at each other. Quick, saving throw! ... 3. Willpower saving roll failed. My eyes drift down ever so slightly and note that with her shirt and camisole cut open, Louise's chest is kind of exposed. Well, I'll probably die, but...

"Um... Louise?"

"Yes, Josh?" She says, not noticing.

"... Screw subtly, I can see your breasts," I tell her.

She manages to simultaneously freeze up, and blush really hard. There's a one second window where I retract the blades so when she slaps me there's no chance of falling on one of them accidentally. To be fair, she didn't slap me. She exploded me. She was just like "explosion!' and then BOOM! And now I'm face down on the floor. ... I feel great pain right now.

"Perverted familiar," I hear Louise grumble to herself.

"To be fair, I heard a noise and swung on instinct," I try to defend myself.

"No excuse."

"Right," I roll over onto my side and see Louise in front of the drawer, ruffling through for something to change into. ... This room has some drawers too? When'd Louise bring a spare outfit? ... I need to pay more attention to this kind of stuff.

"So what were you doing anyway?" Louise says as she discards the now pretty much useless shirt and camisole.

Oh hey, we have a mirror. A mirror I can see Louise in at the moment. ... Saving throw! ... 1. Wow. Well, I can enjoy the view and talk simultaneously.

"Well I picked up these awesome hidden blades back at that weapons vault, and since no one else was in here, I thought I'd try them out. Give 'em a test run, you know?"

"What weapons vault?" Louise asks as she pulls on her camisole.

"The one Romalia has. Full of otherworldly weaponry. Tons of neat stuff," I remark.

"Really? You mean like weapons from your world?" Louise asks as she buttons up her shirt.

"Pretty much," I lie. "Some good stuff there."

"Like those knives you were swinging around?" Louise says as she finishes up and turns towards me.

"Not quite," I say as I stand up. "Blades yes. Knives no. Observe."

And then I extend the hidden blades. Louise takes a step back in surprise. She regains her composure quickly though, so I give her credit for that.

"Well that's... something, alright," she says.

"Yep," I say and retract the blades. "So. What'd the pope say?"

"The third anniversary of his crowning as pope is in about two days, so he thinks that Gallia will attack during that time and wage war."

"... WHY? What did we do to them?" I ask.

"Joseph is the king of Gallia remember?" Louise points out. "We're not on the best of terms with him or his familiar."

"... So war because he doesn't like us?"

"I'm sure he has some other ulterior motive, but I can't say I'm sure myself," Louise says with a shrug.

"Fun. Anything else?" I ask.

There's a silence as Louise hesitates.

"Um... What... what was your old world like?"

Aaaand that came right the **** out of nowhere! "What spawns a topic like that?"

"I-I'm just curious!" Louise claims. "It's just that you've never talked about it at all so..." she trails off.

Something about this is still setting off numerous alarms in my head. _Bad end incoming!_ Thoughts like that. I ignore it.

"Whatever," I say with a shrug. I head towards the bed and sit down. "My life back home wasn't really all that interesting. Had a family, had some friends, things like that."

"What was your family like?" Louise asked. "Any siblings, or was it just you and your parents?"

"No siblings, just me mom and dad." ... God, where'd this headache come from? "Dad was always out on some kind of business venture, whereas mom preferred to work at home."

"What'd they do?" Louise asks.

"Never asked dad what his job was, but mom was some kind of technician," I explain. "I think dad was a business man or something. I remember there was this one time he volunteered for something with this one company working on some memory machine. Can't remember the name. Didn't go well I guess, because after that we moved around a bit. Never quite caught why. Guess my parents and the company didn't get along," I say with a shrug.

"And any friends?" Louise continues the interrogation.

"More acquaintances then anything. I mean, I knew them and I was on good terms with them and everything, but in terms of actual friends, like people you hang out with and talk to, really the only one was Eve."

"That girl you went to the movie with," Louise recalls.

"That's the one. Odd girl though. Always excusing herself at the oddest points to go do something, going on trips halfway across the world from time to time. Obviously she had some kind of job or something she wasn't talking about, but I'm not one to pry. Last time I pried her for information I found out her parents were dead, so I kind of learned my lesson quickly after that."

"Do you miss any of them?" Louise asks me. "Your parents, your friends. Do you ever wish you could see them again?"

I can't say I like where this interrogation is going. I'm scared. Okay Josh, pick your options carefully. Navigate the minefield. Avoid bad end. Though I guess I should still be honest. Why not? Not like lying would get me anywhere here.

"Won't lie. I miss them a whole lot. I do wish I could see them again. However, we don't have a way to get back to my world, and we still have to wrap things up here. As such, I find the easiest way to deal with it is just not think about it at all. Ignore it, pretend you don't miss it and aren't going to cry yourself to sleep at night because of how much you want to see your family again and you can get past it rather easily. Normally I'd do something like maybe even just repress all those memories of everyone if I was certain I'd never see them again, but that'd be kind of rude if I do ever get back."

"That doesn't seem healthy," Louise notes.

"I know. Can... can this conversation be over?" I ask. "I don't want to think about this anymore."

Louise nods. "I understand."

I don't know if she noticed it, but I did. There was a tone to her voice. Something like she had made up her mind about something. Crap. Minefield navigation failed? Maybe I can save this. ... 4. The dice do not favor me today.

***Scene Break***

So the next day came. With nothing to do, I decided to take a quick restroom break. And then I had to the idea to ask Louise what we should do. I'm sure she'd have something in mind. She probably knows the city better then I do, and maybe there's another play or something. Anything to chew up the time!

And so I walked up to mine and Louise's shared room and opened up the door. Only to find Louise sitting on the bed, wearing a blouse with a dark blue skirt. Oh, and the blouse had a ribbon. RIBBONS!

"I thought you hated ribbons?" Is the first thing I say upon seeing her.

"I thought it looked nice," she says with a smile.

"When'd you get it? I don't remember you having it at any earlier point in this trip."

"I bought it yesterday."

"... Why?"

"For today."

Again, why?

"I felt like going out and going around town with you," Louise says. "Is there something wrong with that?"

... Something's clearly wrong. She's cheerful. Too cheerful. ... Well, I guess I'll be able to kill that time, just as planned!

"Um... Okay then! Let's go."

Since Louise was ready, she went out to wait by the entrance/exit for me while I got ready. I didn't need much. I just brought the hidden blades along. Now I know what you're thinking: _Why bring weaponry on a date?_ Well, it's only the hidden blades. I just have a bad feeling about something. Either way, now properly armed, I went out and met with Louise.

And so Louise led me out and into the town. You know, I never noticed just how crowded this town is. It's kind of scary how many people there are. Eventually me and Louise reach a place that's not _quite_ as crowded. Still pretty bad though.

"Oh! I forgot!" Louise says as she pounds a fist into her hand. "Just for today, I'll also listen to any request you have."

"... Excuse me?"

"You heard me. And I do mean anything, so don't be polite, okay?"

What type of man do you take me for? Okay man. This is the important "date scenario." go over your options.

**Option 1: "Then can I touch your breasts?"**

**Option 2: "Skirt lift! Panties please!"**

**Option 3: "In that case, please tell me exactly why you're doing this."**

Well, considering we're in public, that pretty much kills options 1 and 2 dead in the water. In that case...

**Option 1: "Then can I touch your breasts?"**

**Option 2: "Skirt lift! Panties please!"**

***click* - Option 3: "In that case, please tell me exactly why you're doing this."**

"In that case, please tell me exactly why you're doing this," I tell her.

Louise seems caught off guard. Me? Abusing my authority over her and not doing so to prove her point that I'm a perverted familiar? WHAT IS THIS.

"Um... well... The thing is..." Louise makes herself seem all the more believable by stammering and not coming up with an answer. "Ah! This is a reward!"

"Reward?" I ask for clarification.

"Yeah!" She says, happy to have found an excuse. "You've been my familiar for so long without complaining," _I doubt the not complaining part, but oh well._ "So this is a reward for your services!"

Louise's face immediately fall when she sees that I'm not quite buying it.

"Forgive me for not quite believing that's the reason when it took you a minute or two to come up with it," I tell her.

"Please believe me," she says.

I shrug. "I guess the reason doesn't really matter. Even if it turns out you have some kind of ulterior motive, what could it be? You're really a huge pervert and wanted to get me to make the first move so you can pass the blame?"

Louise blushes furiously. However by this point she's amassed so many experience points that she can control the blushing at will, and gets it under control.

"Come on princess, lead the way. This was your idea, after all."

Louise smiles, then grabs my hand and leads me around. We stopped by all sorts of places and had a genuinely nice time. Just sort of chatting and having fun with each other. Dates are fun, I should go on more of them. With Louise, obviously. Polygamy is a surefire way to get yourself killed in medieval style times. Or was it the opposite?

As I go through everything I learned eating at Medieval Times, Louise leads us to this outdoor cafe style place. We paid up front, and since no date would be complete without it, we did order and split an ice cream sundae. Cliches are fun. After the sundae, we ordered some waters as well, so we'd have something to drink.

"Ah, shoot," I say as I lean back on my chair's two legs and look towards the sky.

"What is it?" Louise asks.

"I'm pretty sure I forgot to tell Julio that the tank still works. We can bring that out and use it. It's fuel is pretty low though, so we could probably use it all of once."

"Couldn't you just get Colbert to make more?" Louise asks.

"No, the tank's special. I don't even know how it works, honestly."

"Didn't you say they were from your world though? How can you not know how it works?" Louise asks.

"Special circumstances, tell you later," I say as I wave the topic away. I return the chair to standing on all four of it's legs and grab my glass of water and down the whole thing in a few seconds.

"Whew! That was good!" I exclaim. "A bit of a weird aftertaste, though."

"How weird," Louise replies absentmindedly.

"Something wrong?" I ask. "First you're all cheerful and 'Let's go on a date! Feel me up!'"

"I didn't-"

"Now you're all mopey and depressed. I don't get it."

Louise levels a brief glare at me. "I know what you're going to say. No, it's not that time of the month."

I'd say too much information, but I was going to ask that. She knows me too well.

"Glad we got that cleared up. Just smile a bit more, okay?" I tell her. "Look, I won't even be picky. Keep smiling, or keep moping. One or the other, please not both."

Louise gives a weak smile.

"Hey, follow me," she says as she grabs my hand.

"Wait-"

"We already paid, it's fine," she says as she drags me away. I follow her for a bit until she leads me into some kind of alleyway. Um... I'm pretty sure I'm in the Realta Nua version, please no H-Scenes in a public alleyway where people could see.

"So why are we in an abandoned alleyway?" I ask. Then I immediately feel drowsy. "Whoa. Head trip. Sleepy."

Louise shows an empty smile. "Working already, huh?"

"... Eh?"

As I struggle to stay awake, I somehow manage to piece everything together through my haze.

"You drugged the water?" I ask.

Louise nods, still keeping that empty smile. "I'm sorry. I had to. When you wake up there, I can only hope you'll be able to forgive me."

You're somehow making less sense. Before I can voice that. Louise walks up to me and kisses me. It didn't last very long.

"Just one last time is enough for me," she says, as tears start falling.

"I don't get it," I say as my consciousness starts fading. "When I wake up, you owe me that day of doing whatever I say."

Wait, one last shot! Drug resistance saving roll! ... How do you roll a negative number? And with that thought, everything goes black, and I feel myself fall to the ground.

***Author's Notes***

Uncreative: Okay! Stuff happened! We went to Romalia, you got to voice some opinions-

Joshua: My opinions are my own and are in no way shared with any of the cast or crew.

Uncreative: Nice disclaimer. Anyway, we met the pope, met up again with Julio, the crusades have been set up a bit and Louise hit you with a sleeping potion.

Joshua: We also hit that scene you posted an excerpt of at the end of the last season.

Uncreative: Yeah, that scene changed a bit since then. Originally Josh brought Derflinger along with him to the weapon's vault, you picked up a katana as a back up and the girl wasn't named. Derflinger not coming along was just something that happened, I got rid of the katana because it's not really necessary, and the girl was unnamed because that was supposed to be her first appearance in this story, at which point she didn't have a name yet.

Joshua: Of course then Sarina popped up in Gallia a chapter or two ago, so when she showed up here we had to refer to her by name, because we actually knew it when the chapter got written.

Uncreative: Also the thing with the tank and the tank's security footage was added a bit later. I knew I wanted the tank to be slightly different from the German Panzer in the original light novels, so I made it a bit of a future tank. Considering I have a story planned that does have to do with the future, and tanks do show up at one point, I figured I'd just sort of make the connection.

Joshua: so what was with the psycho who ripped the guys intestines out and-

Uncreative: She's an important character in that story.

Joshua: She seemed really familiar. I can't place it though.

Uncreative: Well, we'll get there when we get there. I also cut a scene out. Originally, Emily would take notice that the pope briefly opened the world door, because her tablet would briefly connect to the internet, and she'd get emails from her friends and family and things like that. She'd be reminded of home, break down, and Louise would come in and comfort her, and that would act as part of the reason that Louise decided to send Josh back to his world.

Joshua: Well that's interesting.

Uncreative: Definitely, but it kind of messed with the pacing. I couldn't get it to flow quite right. We can say that scene still happened, you just didn't see it.

Joshua: Darn shame. That could have been nice. I'm gonna miss it.

Uncreative: Okay, anything else?

Joshua: Think that's about it.

Uncreative: Okay then. See you next time. We're done here.


	15. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14: Memories are a tricky thing**

"Okay, first things first: mental note. Next time Louise offers you a drink, you say no!" I mentally admonish myself.

I say that because after Louise drugged my water, I woke up here, in the middle of nowhere. Just a grassy field. Some trees over there, but that's about it.

"Alright, let's piece it together. I was drugged, fell asleep and wound up in a grassy field and it looks like it's going to rain. Now, how do I piece together the logic between those two events?"

*GRRRRR*

"I'm busy thinking! Now's not the time to be growling! Oh, wait."

I turn towards the growling and notice a pack of wolves.

"Oh. Well. Hi."

Well. Okay, that's, what three wolves? Not really a pack. Oh well.

"I take it we can't come to an agreement?"

The wolves growl at me in response. Fine. What do I have to defend myself? No Derglinfer. Sucks. Still got my hidden blades though. Okay, time to see how useful these things are.

The wolf gets down, then lunges at me.

_Okay. First, dodge right. Stab wolf in neck with blade. Once he hits the floor, return attention to the other two. I imagine the other two will be slightly cautious at the sight of one of their own dying. Once the next once attacks, react. If lunge, dodge under and stab with both blades into abdomen. Toss wolf away, focus on third. If simple run and try to bite, jump over, move after and stab. Once the third one gets ready, repeat actions._

And so I did. The second wolf also tried a lunge, while the third one went for a run and grab. At the end of the encounter, there was me standing above the now recently deceased three wolves. Hmph. These are useful. I hear a sound behind he and instantly slash behind me. Instead all I see is a woman with blonde hair coming out from under her awesome hat clapping her hands. Good thing she was out of range of blade swing.

"Congratulations. I was going to help, but it seemed like you had it under control. And that's a nice reflex with the swing. Might want to control it though, if it means you swing at every noise you hear."

"Yeah, my girlfriend's shirt would probably say something similar."

The woman cracks a smile. "Nice to meet you. My name's Sasha."

Damn, where have I heard that name before? Sounds familiar.

"Joshua Springfield," I tell her. "By the way, where were you when the wolves showed up?"

"Getting water for when you woke up," she says as she tosses me one of the awesome skins people use to hold liquids.

"Thanks," I say as I take a swig then toss it back to her.

I feel a drop of water hit me, and I look up to the sky, and it starts raining. Well, there goes the need to search for water.

"Yes! Rain!" I say with a triumphant fist pump. "About time!"

"You seem happy," Sasha points out, from under a tree she's using as protection.

"Well, I did a bit of traveling, so I missed the rainy season of where I pretty much live."

"I thought you might have been a traveler, considering you were just sleeping in the middle of a field, but I wasn't sure because I don't see any luggage or anything," Sasha notes.

"I'm not really a traveler, it was more for a spot of business my girlfriend had," I say as I join her under the tree. "The reason I was sleeping here was because someone drugged my water. I got knocked out and woke up here."

"Sounds like you've had a fun time recently," Sasha says as she takes off her hat and wrings it out, showing off her pointy ears. Wow, her ears are longer then Tifa's by like a mile. Must be the the fact that one's a pure elf and the other's only half. ... Wait a second.

"Oh, so you're an elf?" I observe.

Sasha seems surprised. "Oh? You know about us? None of the barbarians I've seen around here have even heard of us, let alone seen one."

"Barbarians?"

"Ah, sorry. Humans, I guess you call yourselves," Sasha says with a dismissive wave of her hand.

Okay. Humans haven't heard of elves. That's clue number one. Let's press on.

"So where exactly am I? Like I mentioned, I was kind of knocked out against my will."

"According to him, this place is called Igujestansea," Sasha explains.

"Yeah, I'm not even going to try pronouncing that."

Sasha chuckles. "It took me forever to try and get it right. Don't worry about it."

"Wait. You said 'according to him.' Who's him?"

"My master. Don't know where he is at the moment. Seriously, where is Nidabelio? Honestly, what magic test? What good does it do for people!"

Sounds fun. Wait. Again.

"By master, you mean..." I gesture for more information.

"Hmph. For me, a member of a proud race to be reduced to being his familiar. It's insulting! That's what it is!"

"Familiar? You?"

"Sadly, yes," she says as she shows me her left hand, which has runes on it. Wait, I've seen those runes before!

"Go figure."

"What do you mean?" Sasha asks me. In response I show her my left hand.

"We match."

"You too?" she asks in surprise. "Does your master have that same manner of uncivilized magic as he does?"

"Well it's very good at blowing things up," I remark.

Sasha nods. "That sounds about right. I'd kind of like to meet your master. Know where he is?"

"She's a girl, actually, and considering I'm still not 100% sure where _I_ am, I'll let you divine an answer from there."

"You're a familiar you know? Shouldn't you know where your master is at all times?" Sasha asks, clearly annoyed at my idiocy.

I don't say anything and simply let that statement resonate with her. It takes a second for her to realize what she said, and she blushes slightly.

"Ah, that is... I do know where he is!"

"Admittedly you do know the name of where he is. Could you point me in that direction?"

"Well, you see... Um... You just go over there and..." Sasha pauses. "Well shut up! It's still more then you know!"

"Doesn't make it better!" I say with a grin. "After all, you're a familiar, you know? Shouldn't you know where your master is at all times?"

"You did not just say what I thought you did," Sasha says with a half glare, half smile.

"And if I did?"

We look at each other, then just start laughing.

"We're terrible at our jobs," I mention once the laughter dies down.

"Pretty much," Sasha agrees. "It's weird though. It may not seem like it, but I'm not very good at talking to people I don't know. I get kind of nervous. Why are you different?"

"Who knows?" I say with a shrug. "Even if you were acting like that, I'm sure I could provoke you into reacting just by being annoying enough. I'm good at doing things like that."

"I believe it."

The conversation is interrupted by a light coming from near the tree. I turn to face it and see a portal not unlike the one that brought me to Halkegnia in the first place. Let's not investigate it again.

"About time he got here," Sasha notes.

"Oh, your master can teleport. I wish Louise could do that," I remark.

Out from the portal drops a guy. No, boy would be more accurate. He look only a few years older then me. No, wait. That'd still make him a guy, not boy. AGH. It was a male, there. He had golden hair that looked brushed over, and was wearing a sort of robe thing. The boy walks over to us, and looks apologetic.

"Sorry, sorry. The magic test took longer then I thought it would. Sorry."

Sasha's shoulders start to tremble with righteous fury. Maybe it was righteous. Could have been hellish for all I know.

"You barbarian!" Sasha says before kicking the boy in the face and sending him to the ground.

Definitely hellish.

"Gah!" the boy cries out before being rolled onto his back where Sasha continues her rage.

"I've said it before! What did we both agree on! Say it loud and clear!"

"The barbarian is very sorry," _And I'm sorry for you too. The nostalgia of the scene is making me hurt all over. _"The next time I take a magic test I'll get things done with much faster. I'm sorry."

The two argue back and forth a bit more. Well, "argue" is a strong word. It was more Sasha yelling at the kid while he tries to fix things up ad I try not to break into tears at the nostalgic memories of the time Louise treated me like that. Well, let's try and break it up and help the poor guy.

"So, you treat everyone you like that way, because I'm getting a little wary," I tell Sasha.

She stops and looks at me, then her cheeks gain a slight coloration.

"N-no, this barbarian is just... Nevermind!" She says as she walks a bit aways. Not too far though, considering it's still raining.

"Thank you," the boy tells me as I help him up. "Who are you?"

"Joshua Springfield. Nice to meet you Mister..."

"I am Brimir of Nitabelio. A pleasure to meet you Mr. Springfield," he says as he offers me a handshake.

God, my head is all fuzzy still! Where have I heard that name before? Either way, I shake his hand.

"Oh yeah," Sasha says. "He and I have the same runes. Almost forgot to mention that."

"What!? Really!? Let me see!" He says as he tightens his grip on my left hand and bring it up for inspection.

"Bah!" Brimir cries out. "This isn't a true Gandalfar! He's probably just a gnome or something made super agile with magic!"

"Last I checked I was human," I remark.

"Still! Sasha! You know what this means?"

"What does it mean?" Sasha asks, not really caring.

"This means there are others who use the same odd system of magic that I do! Just like I always said! Mr. Springfield!"

"Just Joshua is fine."

"Joshua! Please! Take me to your master now!"

"That's a mite more difficult then you may think," I tell him, wondering how to explain.

"What do you mean?" Brimir asks.

"He was drugged and woke up here. He didn't even know where he was until I told him," Sasha explains.

"Is that so?" Brimir says, his voice full of disappointment. "I really would have liked to meet them."

"I'm sure she'd want to meet you too," I tell him. "Just, kind of not possible at the moment."

"The rain is letting up," Brimir notes. "We were going to be on our way to Nitabelio, would you like to come with us?"

"I wouldn't mind the additional company," Sasha says with a brief smile.

"Sure. Sounds like fun."

"And on the way there, please tell us everything you can about your master!" Brimir says enthusiastically.

"You don't have to mention anything if you don't want to," Sasha tells me. "He's just a little ecstatic about the fact that others are as odd as he is."

"I know that feeling," I remark. "And sure. I can tell a few details," I tell them as we begin our walk.

"Her name was Louise something something, Valliere," I begin.

"You can't remember your own master's name?" Sasha asks.

"Well it was some really long and convoluted name!"

"I understand," Brimir says. "Brimir Ru Rumiru Nitabelio is a little long of a name, so I usually introduce myself as Brimir of Nitabelio."

"Anyway, she's sixteen, give or take, but a we bit on the short side. Cute, but a bit of a temper. At first she was rather quick with a whip and good at using it."

"Whips sound preferable to kicks honestly," Brimir says with a sigh. Sasha doesn't say anything and doesn't look at us.

"Still, she's gotten a lot better. She's resorted to sarcasm as opposed to abuse. I sometimes use a little more sarcasm then is necessary, so I think it rubbed off on her."

"I can imagine," Sasha said. "Everyone is more susceptible to influence from others then they may think."

"Despite that, she's incredibly sweet. She can be gentle when she wants to be, like the time my arm was nearly burned off by a lightning spell and she fixed it with this anti burn medication we got. She's kind of brash, and impulsive at times, but she always does what she feels is right for everyone. For every moment she has where she's rude, or condescending, she has another where she's more sweet and caring then is deserved."

Thank whatever higher power I feel like thanking today that Louise isn't here to hear any of that. She'd lynch me for telling people I've barely known such an embarrassing speech.

"The way you talk about her makes it seems like you're rather fond of her," Brimir points out.

"Yeah, I love her, I'll admit," I tell them.

"So she's that girlfriend you mentioned?" Sasha asks.

"Yep. We are technically a couple."

"You're in a relationship with your master?" she asks.

"What, you're not jealous are you?"

Boom! Another blush!

"As if," Sasha says, turning away.

"Tsun," I tell her.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" she asks me angrily.

"It's a bit of dialect from somewhere I know of. Remind me to tell you later," I tell her.

Brimir, Sasha and I continued trading banter here and there as we walked to Nitabelio.

"Thanks for telling us what you could," Brimir says as we finally enter the city/town/village. "Not many people use this odd system of magic. It'd be terrible if Valiag found out about it."

"Indulge the idiot," I remark. "What's a Valiag?"

"You don't know?" Brimir asks.

"Been a bit too busy to keep up with current events."

"This hardly counts as current," Sasha replies.

"They're a group of devils that employ terribly cruel tactics," Brimir explains. "We're locked in a war with them. Their leader holds some frightening power to make people obey him unquestioningly."

"Mind control?" I ask.

"It must be," Sasha says. "There's no other way people would do what they're told willingly."

"****ing bastard," I swear under my breath.

"Josh?" Sasha says, seemingly shocked by the swear.

"Sorry. Sorry. Mind control is something I absolutely hate. I'm one of the people who values the idea of free will and that we're the only ones in control of what we do. The idea that someone could willingly take that away pisses me off to no end."

"I agree," Sasha says. "Forcing someone to do something against their will is the most grievous of sins I can think of."

"And that's why we're friends. We think alike, you and I," I tell her.

"Chief! Bad news!" Someone tells Brimir.

"What's going on?" Brimir asks.

"The Valiag are attacking!"

"Well that was quick," I say. "We just got back!"

"No time for snappy remarks, we have to go and hold them off!" Brimir tells me.

"Understood," Sasha says with a nod before turning to me. "You need a weapon, or are you okay?"

I extend and brandish my two hidden blades, causing my runes to light up. "I think I'll be fine. Let's go."

And so the three of us rushed off to meet the invading force.

"Holy hell that's a lot of people!" I note.

"Unnerved by having to fight off an army to give him the time to cast his spell?" Sasha asks.

"Nah, this isn't the first time I've done something like this," I reply.

"Sounds like you've had a fun time as a familiar."

"More then you could ever know."

As I looked at the approaching army, I hear Brimir behind us start chanting his spell. Weirdly enough, I recognize the spell.

"He's going to blow them all up, isn't he?"

"That spell a favorite of your master too?" Sasha asks with a wry smirk.

"Favorite of both me and her," I say, returning the smirk.

"Well, let's make sure we all leave this situation happy. Come on!" Sasha says before charging the army, short sword in hand.

I rush in after he and jump right into the fray. Okay. Army of mind controlled peoples. Here's the thing. Do I do what I did last time and just knock 'em all out or cause them to pass out? Or do I just go straight in and kill? He did say they were devils, but that could have just been a figure of speech.

One of them swings a sword at me. I parry it with one blade, then swing with the other. His throat is slashed open, and he spins 180 degrees and falls to the ground. Well, looks like circumstances decided my course of action for me. Let's let instinct take over.

I don't know if my blades are just extraordinarily strong, or the armor is extraordinarily paper-like, but I have no problem punching right through the armor right into some vital organs. Maybe void chanting has a stat boost effect on void familiars? I do feel like stealing death's wallet again. Who knows.

A soldier attempts to run me through with his sword, so I parry then stab him in the throat. I turn around and slash another attempting to get me. One attempts to swing an axe at me, so I grab the handle, stab him in the face, then wrench the axe from his now dead grip. I swing the axe for an overhead which imbeds the axe into one soldier's skull.

A few kills later, and I find myself sort of encircled by a group of them. Well fine. Circle's fine. Now you come to me, instead of the other way.

I bring up my hidden blades in a defensive posture. One attempts a swipe at my head with his sword. I catch the blade with mine, close the distance then stab him through the head. I turn towards the next one and catch his blade with both of mine. While I'm blocking that blade, someone attempts to get me from behind. I stop blocking and kick the second one in the gut to stun him. I grab his sword from him and shove it through the first soldier's stomach. I grab the first soldier's hand and guide the sword it's holding into the other soldier's heart. Geez, I just noticed how violent my instincts are.

Three more attempt to strike me at the same time. I parry the first strike, catch the second strike and guide it to block the third strike. I grab the first sword and stab the soldier's wrist to get him to drop it. I parry the second sword, then stab the sword I'm holding into the third's knee. I grab the wrist of the second soldier and move behind him, bringing his sword with him, then move it so he stabs himself in the back.

Let's try something different. I retract my right blade and bring out the hook instead. Two soldiers approach me. I hook the first one by the collar and lower him, while I grab the pistol hanging around the seconds waist, rotate it so the barrel points to the first one's temple and pull the trigger. There's a bang as his brains go flying. I bring the hook and grab onto the soldier who's gun I used. I pull, causing him to bend at the waist, and roll over him like a piece of cover. I use the momentum from the roll combined with the hook still attached to him to toss him, knocking down a group of soldiers. I like this.

_Any time now Mr. Brimir._

My thought is answered as the explosion is completed. An explosion faaaaar larger then anything Louise could ever hope to accomplish.

"Shit!"

The explosion created winds upwards of 600 miles an hour! Chunks of earth were torn from the ground and flung distances upwards of 50 miles in a completely unrelated direction! It proceeded to rain blood like we just had an EVA unit kill an angel! I was like an apocalypse! ... Okay, a bit of exaggeration. All I know is I get knocked to the ground. I get up and suddenly everything's dead.

"Geez, at least leave a few for the rest of us," I complain as I work on getting up, only to be hit with a sudden jab of pain. "Ow! What the hell?"

Oh! That explains it. I fell on a sword. A pointy sword. So that's what it feels like to be stabbed. I can't help but sympathize with those soldiers from ever so slightly earlier.

"Hmm. I feel like I should be reacting a bit more, but I guess it hasn't set in yet. Oh, wait. There it goes. WOW THIS HURTS!"

"What're you complain- J-Josh!" Sasha's attitude changes when she notices the sword sticking out of me. "Stay still, we can get a healer right away!"

"Got it! I'll stay here and hurt for a bit. I'll leave the sword in for a bit to hold off the bleeding, okay?"

"HEALER! WE NEED A HEALER!" Sasha yells as she goes off to get help.

Pain. Pain. Ow. I WAS STABBED THROUHG THE GUT, HOW AM I NOT DEAD YET. THIS MAKES NO SENSE. HELP.

"O-okay, just hold still, we have a healer," Sasha tells me as she, Brimir and some other girl come up.

"PAIN. I'll just take a nap or two, wake me when I'm not dying."

"No! Stay awake!"

Too late. Naptime.

***Scene Break***

"I'm so sorry!" Brimir tells me. "I can't apologize enough! I'm sorry!"

"It's fine, not your fault I fell on a sword," I tell him.

"I must apologize to your master as well," Brimir says.

"Well if I see her again I'll pass the message on," I tell him.

"How are you feeling?" Sasha asks as she eyes the bandages around my midsection.

"Like I had a sword run through me. It's actually quite a pleasant experience, one of you should give it a try sometime," I remark.

"Don't joke like that," Sasha tells me sternly. "How were you so calm with a sword sticking out of your gut?"

I shrug. "Well the shock kept the fact that the sword was there at all from setting in, so it took a bit for the pain to finally go. Also, panicking increases heart rate, which increases blood flow, doesn't it? My knowledge of biology is limited, but I don't think having more blood flowing from you wound is good. Anyway, that fight kind of sucked. Do we seriously have no means of countering them other then blow them all to hell?"

"We think we have something," Brimir tells me. "We're just not sure where it is, or if it'll work. Forget that for know. Aside from apologizing, I also can't thank you enough for helping us."

"Don't worry about it."

"Chief!"

Oh, it's that guy again. Fine, bring on the bad n-

"I think we might have found it!" The messenger says.

Brimir and Sasha freeze up.

"You're sure?" Brimir asks. The messenger nods in reply. "I'm sorry Joshua, but I must step out for a second."

And so he did, leaving me alone with Sasha.

"I take it this is that potential edge you've been talking about?" I ask.

Sasha nods.

"What is it exactly? Nuclear missile to blow them to hell and a half and irradiate the remains?"

Sasha shoots me a confused look.

"Um... Never mind," I tell her. "You were saying?"

"Remember how we mentioned that that the leader of the Valiag might be using something to control the minds of his subordinate?" Sasha asks.

"Yeah, something along those line."

"We may have found an item to counter it, it we can figure out how to use it," Sasha tells me.

"Ooh, a magical item?"

"We're not certain," Sasha tells me. "It's actually part of some of the legends I've heard about the first civilization."

"Who now?" I ask.

Sasha gives a wry smile. "Who says any of us were ever the first to walk this planet?"

"Okay! It should be in here!" Brimir says as he bursts in with a small box.

"Sounds fun!" I say as I bounce up, wince due to pain, but recover quick enough to get a first row seat to the box opening party. "What's in the box?" _Besides the head of Detective Mills' wife?_

"Okay, let's hope they actually found it," Brimir says as he slowly opens the lid.

As the lid slowly flips open, a bright light starts pouring out of the box and filling the room.

"Wait, isn't that..." I don't finish and instead reach for the object inside the box.

Then my vision starts glitching out a bit, and all of a sudden, I'm in some kind of white room. A bland, boring white room with nothing else. Goddamn loading screens.

"Oh come on!" I exclaim in annoyance. "Fine. It's obvious what was in there anyway. Let's just get this loading screen over with."

I fold my arms over my chest and tap my foot as I wait for the next scene to load. Hmph. Pretty nice loading screen though.

***Scene Break***

"Aaaaand good morning!" I say as I sit up and stretch. "Okay, were am I now?"

"Ah, you're awake. How are you feeling?"

"Oh for ****'s sake, what are you doing here?!" I ask as I get up and point at Julio.

"Is that anyway to answer my question?" Julio asks with the must smug look on his face.

"Oh, fine, asshole. I'm just fine. Just had a neat little dream featuring Sa... THAT's it!" I say while I pound a fist into my palm.

"What is the matter?" Julio asks.

"No, I heard a few names in my dream that seemed familiar. I just remembered where I heard them before."

"And where might that be?" He asks.

"And why might you be here?" I counter to change the subject.

"I was entrusted with your safe return," Julio says with an annoying smirk.

"For what purpose? You know what, I don't care. Can I leave now?"

"The door is right over there," Julio says with a motion. "Before that-"

"Awesome! See? You can be useful! All you need to do is tell me how to get as far away from you as possible!"

I turn and head for the door, open it and find myself in another room.

"Julio! How do I get out of this room? Wait, scratch that, I'll ask this guy. Your Popeliness! How do I get out of here?"

"You really don't notice the out of place object here?" Julio asks.

"What are you talking about?" I ask.

"You seriously don't notice?" Julio's smile actually drops. Amazing. I'm apparently stupid enough to confuse perpetual smilers into dropping that annoying smirk.

"Um... I see a pope, a portal, a door, that chair looks slightly wor- wait a minute."

"Yes, this was the deal that Ms. Valliere struck with us," the pope tells me. "She'll support our crusade, provided I open the world door and send you back to your world."

Well that explains the drugs.

"Well that's stupid! Where is she? I have some things I need to tell her," I say.

"I'll tell you, but first you have to choose. Your world, or your master?" Julio asks. "Ah, before you choose, I should inform you that Gallia and Myoznirntirn-"

"Sheffield."

"Gallia and _Shefflield_," Julio corrects. "Did indeed attack, as we expected them too. Louise is out on the front lines fighting with out forces against them right now."

"Well then why are you still keeping me here?" I ask. "Shouldn't we be going to make sure everything's okay?"

"A deal is a deal. She agreed to fight for us, we agreed to send you back to your world. Of course, if you choose to not go back, the deal's void and there's nothing we can do about it."

"Well why are we still here? You can open that portal anytime, whereas people only die once," _I think. Might need to test that at some point._ "Let's hurry up and go!"

"So you choose to stay here?" The pope asks me.

"Did you not hear me?"

"Good, I won't need this," Julio says as the pope closes the portal.

I turn and notice Julio has a pistol in his hand pointed at me. Guns do a very poor job of building affection points.

"Oh, so if I choose to go home, you shoot me. Bastards the lot of you," I tell them.

"What use is a gandalfar that's not here?" Julio tells me. "You don't like us, so we can afford to be honest here. We don't need you, and if circumstances permit, we might not even need those runes of yours. Until we know otherwise, we'll keep you around."

"You know, it'd be incredibly easy to grab that pistol and shoot both you and the pope right now, right?"

"Sorry, the pistol only has one shot," Julio tells me smugly.

"Who said both shots'd be from the pistol?" I tell him. "Never mind. So where's Louise?"

"Aquileia, about 10 miles north from here," the pope tells me.

"Neat. Julio, we ever get that super tank out of the weapons vault?" I ask.

"Yes, we have it nearby. You think you can pilot it?" He asks.

"I don't think," I inform him.

"We're aware," he tells me. "The machine isn't too far away from here. You should have no trouble finding it. We wish you the best of luck."

I don't need luck, I've got a tank from the future.

"Oh, and for future reference, if you want to actually give someone a life or death decision, at least handcuff them or something to keep them from picking their own option."

"We'll keep that in mind."

Of course, it doesn't work if they can slip out of the handcuffs, but whatever, I've got a tank to drive.

***Scene Break***

"Aha! There it is!" I say as I approach the tank. Of course there aren't any guards here. That'd be sensible.

"You there! Don't touch that!"

They were actually smart! I'm genuinely surprised!

"What do you think you're doing here?" the guard asks as he approaches.

"Well, you see, I was going to pilot this piece of machinery over to Aquileia to help out with that thing that's going on."

"Do you have any kind of permission regarding that plan of yours?" the guard asks.

"Well technically yes. You see-"

I interrupt myself by smashing the guard's helmet against the side of the tank, somehow managing to hit the switch and open the top as the guard slumps to the floor unconscious.

Okay, let's do this! I climb up to the top and hop in, just barely missing Tabitha on the way in.

"Tabby? What are you doing here?"

"Standing watch," she informs me.

"By yourself, or was there someone else here?" I ask.

"Kirche."

"Where'd she go?"

"Bathroom."

Well, let's leave a note or something so she doesn't seem confused when she finds the tank gone.

"Driving is easy, but firing is a bit of a two person job. Can I rely on your knowledge of the inner workings of machinations of complex machinery to aid me in my mission to help out the people over in Aquileia?"

"No."

"Bitchin! I'll instruct you as we drive there. Let's drive!"

And so I sat in the drivers seat, with Tabby in the seat next to me in the cannon's seat. I push a button and two monitors popped up, one for me and one for Tabby. My monitor just shows a plain view of where we're driving, whereas Tabby's has a whole HUD, complete with reticle.

Okay, let's go through this. This is drive, this is steer.

"Okay Tabby. This stick aims the cannon, see?" I say as I move the joystick closest to her to demonstrate. "This button fires, but I'm not going to demonstrate that. See that meter on the side of you screen?"

She nods.

"See how it's empty and blue? The more the gun fires, the more that fills up and slowly gets red. When it's full, the cannon's overheated. When that happens, press the blue button on your right to initiate cool down so we can get back to shooting. Got it?"

"Maybe."

"You'll learn with practice. Let's get going. ... Damn, all this future tech and we can't even get a damn radio on this thing. Oh well. Tabitha, now any good traveling tunes?"

"None worth singing."

"Darn. This might be a while."

***Scene Break***

The ride took about ten minutes. For a tank, this thing's surprisingly speedy. How did I know we had gotten there? Well, if the explosions didn't give it away, the colossus might have. Wait, how stupid of me. The colossus didn't give it away, the FIVE colossi gave it away, my mistake.

"Well shit," I voice. "This is gonna be fun. Any ideas?"

"Same as last time."

"I am not doing what I did last time against those things. That nearly killed me, and would take far too long. Well, at least we've got a tank. Okay, get the main cannon charged up Tabby, we're going to need to fire and fire fast."

Tabitha nods and presses a button and flips a few switches. There's a hum as the main cannon hums to life.

"Beautiful," I say with a grin. "Okay. Get the colossus in the center of the crosshair then fire. The gun fires condensed energy, so you don't need to worry about gravity affecting it. Heavy winds might throw it off, so be careful and watch the monitor, I think it has some kind of aim assist."

"Understood."

Tabby stares intently at the screen, moving the joystick to keep the colossus in the center while I move us within range. Despite being a tank, the range on this thing is more of an after thought, so we can't just hang out a few miles back and snipe it. I doubt a regular tank could, but this is a future tank, so I'm kind of disappointed.

"Target within range," a computerized voice tells us.

"Tabby! Fire!"

Tabitha then proceeds to do an open palm slam on the fire button. The cannon whirs to life with energy, then the tank rocks slightly backwards as the cannon fires.

"Oi colossus! Let's see ya grit those teeth!" I can't help by say with a grin right before the ball of explosive energy slams right into the face of one of the golems before exploding. When the dust of that clears, the colossus finds itself without a head. It briefly pauses before falling to it's knees then falling down.

"Hell yeah! Tabby, I think if you hold the button down it charges up a bit. Be careful, that might overheat the gun faster though."

"Understood."

The blowing up the head of the first colossus was awesome, but it also grabbed the attention of the other four, who all turn and look at us. Oops.

"Tabby, start charging up, I think we're going to need a few big booms."

Tabby nods and holds the button down. The cannon whirs back to life, and keeps whirring as the energy inside it starts building up. I work on getting us to go in reverser to increase distance between us and the now advancing golems.

"Maximum charge reached," the computer tells me.

"Tabby! Fire!"

Tabby lets go of button, and the tank takes a rather annoying lurch backwards as a glob of energy the size of a beachball is fired. I know that doesn't seem like much, but the last shot that blew up the thing's head was about the size of a baseball. Beachballs are much deadlier.

This shot collides with the chest of one of the colossi. It doesn't explode immediately. Instead it first burns right through the colossus' chest and implants itself right in the middle of the thing. Then it explodes. And what an explosion it was. All that was left was the waist and legs, which promptly fell to the ground, now useless.

"Tabby, get another shot ready."

"Cooling down," she tells me as she presses the cooldown button.

"Figures. Okay, hold on, the other ones are still pissed at us."

I try to keep a distance between us and the remaining three. Damn, why are cooldowns always such a bitch?

"Cooldown complete," the computer tells us.

"Tabitha! Fire as many shots as you can! I'd like it if there weren't any of them there! Aim carefully!"

"Got it."

It might be the glasses, but Tabitha's an AMAZING shot! She managed to head shot all three in quick succession!

"Tabby you're awesome," I tell her.

"Thank you."

"Now that that's done, let's go check on everyone else," I say as I drive the future tank over to the soldiers.

I park the tank near the mass of people, open the top and hop out onto the ground.

"Whew. Everyone okay, or do we need to blow up any other large structures?" I ask.

"Other then your monumental idiocy, I think we'll be good," a familiar voice says.

"Thank you, Louise," I say as I turn to look at her. "Where'd you get the robes, Index?" I ask.

"Who are you talking about?" Louise with nun's robes that looks suspiciously like Index's outfit tells me. "As the saint of Aquileia, this is practically a uniform! A rather embarrassing uniform, but a uniform nonetheless!"

"Uh-huh. Right. Wait. Saint? I go away for a day and you get canonized a saint?" Don't you need to be dead for that? "Ah well. Neither of us is dead yet, so we're good."

"Go back. What did you mean by, 'go away for a day?'" Louise asks me. "I've never seen you before in my life."

... Waht. Pronunciation intentional?

"Okay, nice joke and all," I say.

"I'm a saint, we're not allowed to have a sense of humor," Louise tells me.

Alright K, thanks for the info. "So you're serious."

"I'm always serious," she tells me with a stern look.

"You look at me, and see nothing familiar."

"Not at all."

"Well does the name Joshua Springfield mean anything to you?" I ask.

"Other then it sounding stupid, nothing."

Ouch.

"Um... Well, do these look familiar?" I ask as I show her my gandalfar runes.

"Those are familiar runes, aren't they?" Louise asks. "So you're so odd that you actually get confused with an animal in the summoning ritual. Impressive."

"And you're so odd you summon a human," I tell her.

"What?"

"Well, you see and seem to have forgotten, but you summoned me a while ago and made me your familiar. Coming back to you?"

"The only thing coming back to me is that you are clearly a poor insane person. It's okay, I'm sure we can find a psychiatrist to help you," Louise tells me.

"Joshua!"

"Guiche! What the hell are you doing here?" I ask the guy who just came running up to us.

"I was here to help out, but never mind! Where have you been?" Guiche asks.

"Unconscious for the most part, long story, tell later. Know what's up with Index over here?" I say with a gesture to Louise.

"Um... you see," Guiche says as he leads me away from Louise for a private conversation. "Did you know that Tifa can erase memories?"

"Yes."

"It appears that Louise had Tifa erase her memories of you," Guiche explains.

"... WHY?" I ask.

"If Tifa knew, she didn't tell us," Guiche admits. "What do we know?"

"I know exactly what we're going to do!" I say proudly and triumphantly. "We are going to find Emily and make her do everything! She knows things, I'm sure she can fix this!"

"The maid? What'll she do?" Louise asks me.

"Oh come on! You remember Emily but you don't remember me? Come on!" I say, exasperated. "Anyway, come along Index, we've got a maid to go see."

"Why should I go along with you? How do I know you're not just here to kidnap or assassinate me?" Louise asks defensively.

In response, I smash her and Guiche's head together, knocking them both out.

"Crap, Romalia is fostering some bad habits far too quickly. Sorry. Um... no concussions, right? Good. Great, how am I going to get them out of here? Um... Tabby? Any more room in the tank?"

***Scene Break***

The ride back to where we usually stayed was a bit awkward, due to poor space management. The tank was not built to hold all these people. As such, Louise had to sit on my lap, and Tabitha elected to sit on Guiche's lap so she could still aim should the need arise. Normally this'd be the perfect mixture for fun times and awkward banter, but Louise and Guiche were still sleeping, so that didn't happen. Sadly.

Eventually, we were able to get back to the chapel place that serves as our current headquarters.

"Okay Tabby, take Guiche to some kind of infirmary, I'll take Louise to Emily and get things sorted out. Got it?"

"Understood," Tabby says as she grabs Guiche and hops out of the tank to head off for somewhere else.

"Huh? What's going on?" Louise asks as she slowly starts waking up.

"Just kidnapping you, don't worry," I tell her as I pick her up in a bridal carry and hop out of the tank.

"H-hey! You pervert! Let me go!" She yells as she starts kicking and screaming.

Well, considering we're already in our room, "Okay." And then I dropped her, and she fell to the floor.

"Hey!" she yells as she gets up and glares at me angrily.

"You said to let you go!" I say defensively.

"Oi, oi, what's the yelling about?" Emily asks as she walks into the room. "Oh, it's you two arguing again. What happened this time?"

"Maid! You actually know this... person?"

"Person is hardly an insult," I tell her.

"Would you prefer barbarian?"

"Is your name Sasha?" I ask.

"What? N-No!"

"Then no. She at least had a semi valid excuse for it," I say. "Anyway, Emi-"

*SLAP*

"Oh come on! I said it right that time!"

"Sorry," Emily says with a slight blush. "Force of habit. Sorry. Sorry. Anyway, what's up?"

"Watch and learn. Louise, you seriously don't know me?"

"How many times to I have to say it? I've never met you in my life!" Louise barks at me.

"See?"

"Oh, yeah. The Tifa thing with the memory wipe," Emily says with a nod. "Fun fact. I was there when it happened."

"What memory wipe?" Louise asks.

"Know how to fix it?" I ask.

"That depends. Are you two going to close your eyes?" Emily asks, an impish smirk on her face.

... Oh god. She's not going to- Of course she is.

"Sure, I can close my eyes. Louise?"

"Why do I have to close my eyes?" Louise asks.

"Because these little babies asked you too," Emily says as she pulls her pistols out from under her skirt. "They're asking nicely."

Louise seems frightened, then shuts her eyes tight. I do the same.

"Okay, move you here, move you here, and fixing problem in 3. 2. 1."

I feel a push on my back, then a tingling sensation on my lips. My eyes shoot open and I notice that I'm currently lip locked with Louise. Louise seems incredibly shocked if the look in her eyes is telling. She immediately pushes me away and takes a step back.

"Honestly Emily, are you ever going to find a way to solve a problem that doesn't involve us kissing each other?" Louise asks.

"That depends. Did it work?" Emily asks. "Who's that over there?" She points to me.

"Well it's Josh obviously," Louise pauses and freezes up as the pieces of the puzzle start putting themselves together. "Wa-wait a moment! Josh! What are you doing here! You shouldn't be here!"

Considering it was either stay here or get shot, the choice seems obvious but, let's wait on that.

"Right, I'm supposed to be in my world apparently because of a stupid deal you made, right?"

"I-It's just that..." Louise trails off.

"I'll leave you two alone for a bit," Emily informs us. "Oh, before I do, Josh, her memories are your version of events, and Louise? The answer is no. See you."

Emily turns, opens the door and then closes it behind her once she leaves.

"I'll never get her," I remark. And what's that about being my version of events?

"Never mind that! Why are you still here! Why didn't you go home like you were supposed to!" Louise seems on the brink of tears.

"Never mind that, why did you think it was a good idea to erase your memories?" I ask, hitting the ball back into her court.

"I... It wasn't until a little after I gave you over to Julio," _An action I will never forgive you for. Leaving me alone and unconscious with... him! _"It suddenly occurred to me. You were gone. I'd never be able to see you again. That realization hurt me. It hurt really, really badly. There was a brief period of... would despair be a good word? No, too dramatic. Ignoring that, I just felt horrible. I was in no condition to do anything."

"Certainly no condition to fight a crusade."

Louise chuckles weakly. "Heh. Y-yeah. I honestly didn't know how I would go one if I kept like that. Maybe after a while I would get better, but what if I didn't?"

"What if you were mopey and depressed for the rest of your life?"

"So I asked Tifa if she could erase my memories of you," Louise concludes. "Help... I don't know, 'fix me' seems a bit odd, doesn't it?"

"All I know is the idea of repressing your memories of someone on the off chance you'll never see them again is one of the stupidest things you could possibly do," at that, I wince and grab my head. "Gah. Terrible headache. That tank is not the best ride."

"Tank seems like a rather weird name," Louise points out.

"Well, technically it's official name is-"

*BOOM*

"Wh-what the hell was that?" Louise asks.

"Oh, the tank self destructed. It set itself to automatically do that after the shootout with the colossi," I explain.

"Wh-why?" Louise asks.

"Well, I actually had to postpone that because it wanted to blow up when Tabby and I turned it on to go help out. It was throwing out some technobabble that I didn't get. Either way, I kept it intact until it was no longer needed."

"Speaking of the tank, how did it pierce the Coloss- _Jormundgand's_ counter so easily?" Louise wonders. "They had some upgrades apparently, not even my magic worked against it."

I briefly hesitate. "Let's say that was made for something a hell of a lot worse then a couple giant golems. Evidence of that something now no longer exists with the explosion of the video footage, so you'll have to take my word on that."

"Riiiiight," Louise says, dragging that syllable out longer then needed. "Still, why are you still here? Did Julio and the Pope just not offer you to go back to your world?"

"Well, the world door was there, if you're wondering. Of course considering we still have some stuff to finish up here, and they can open that door whenever they like, the option was quite clear. And that's ignoring the fact that they were going to shoot me dead if I decided to go home."

"Wh-what!" Louise exclaims in surprise.

"Oh yeah, if I decided I wanted to go home, they were going to shoot me. They don't need me, just the gandalfar runes, and they said they might not even need that."

"S-so they were basically just using us?" Louise says. I nod, and Louise suddenly gains a few shades of RIGHTEOUS FURY. Or hellish fury. Not sure.

"How dare they use us like that! And for what end?!"

Righteous fury. Definitely righteous. As I ponder the difference between the two, Louise begins tugging at her nun clothing.

"Easy Index, what are you doing?" I ask.

"I can't stand wearing this anymore!" Louise says to me. "And to think I was happy to be called a saint!"

"Right, question. You got anything on under that?"

"Huh? N-" Louise stops, then blushes, realizing the hole in her plan.

"Well, continue right ahead, I'm not going to stop you," I say, gesturing for her to continue.

In response, I'm hit in the face with a whole bunch of cloth. Closer inspection reveals some interesting facts.

"Are these really made to be taken off so quickly?" I ask as I inspect the nun robes.

"Let's not question what that implies about them," Louise says as she stands near the dresser, changing back into her usual manner of dress.

"Right. Oh, before I forget, Brimir says he's sorry."

Louise pauses in the middle of buttoning up her shirt. She remembers to finish buttoning up before turning to me.

"Excuse me?"

"Yeah, while I was busy sleeping, I had a dream that I was however many years ago it was where I met Brimir and the first Gandalfar, Sasha. Nice people. Anyway, Brimir apologized because we fought off this army, he used explosion and blew them all up and the resulting shockwave knocked me onto a sword. He told me to apologize to you."

Louise seems stunned.

"Well... that's... that's certainly something," Louise forces out.

"Indeed. Tons of interesting things in there," I tell her.

"Such as?"

"Well did you know that Brimir fought an army called the Valiag? Or that the leader of said army could apparently control people's minds somehow? Or that Brimir and Sasha apparently found some way to potentially counter it? Don't know what it is though, the dream cut out."

"Wait, Sasha? Didn't Emily-"

"Yep. She was pretty much spot on," I say. "Elf, first gandalfar, nice girl."

"How weird," Louise muses.

"Can't deny that, but for now we have a slightly more pressing issue," I point out.

"What's that?" Louise asks.

"Nothing much. Just the fact that we're now apparently in a war with Gallia, and will probably go crusade against the elves after that."

"... Oh. Right. Forgot about that."

It's pretty easy to.

***Author's Notes***

Uncreative: Um...

Joshua: "Um..." what?

Uncreative: I don't really have much to say about this one. Let's see. Well I liked writing Sasha. Damn shame I appear to be completely incapable of writing her again for the simple reason being that that whole beginning half was a sort of dream sequence.

Joshua: You're writing a pseudo Assassin's Creed crossover, I'm sure you'll figure something out.

Uncreative: Also, the tank thing near the end? That sucked. I mean, how am I going to write a battle between a future tank and five skyscrapers? I can barely write a good action sequence as is!

Joshua: It could have been worse. A lot worse. Probably.

Uncreative: Also, I think this is the shortest chapter I've written for this story. About freaking time! Turns out, the part I decided to cover was barely a fourth of the original light novel. Fine by me. I've been wanting to write shorter chapters.

Joshua: The length's fine.

Uncreative: Whatever. Either way, I think we're about done here. Probably. Let me read through again and check. Aha! The whole, memory loss thing.

Joshua: Ripped straight from the light novels. Solution included. Not sure how making out restores memories. Maybe they explain it better.

Uncreative: Who knows. Either way, now I think we're about done here. See you next time.

Joshua: See ya.


	16. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15: Hail to the King**

Apparently people here in Halkegnia see the need to party hard after every successful battle. I'm not complaining, but it seems a bit weird to celebrate when the war's going on. Maybe it's just because it was special occasion, what with the killing of five colossi. I'd agree with celebrating, but I felt like shit after just killing one colossus. I had to almost force myself to take out the other fifteen. Damn, I almost forgot how emotionally draining that game is. Was. Either or.

"Geez, what do you seem so down for?" Emily asks me, a glass of wine in her hand. "Everyone else is having a grand old time, so join in! Grab a glass, get shit-faced and join the fun!"

"I'm sorry, I'll have to decline," I reply. "And I'm not down. I'm mostly just sort of thinking. Trying to put together the pieces to an incomplete puzzle."

"What are you talking about?" Louise asks as she joins the two of us.

"I mentioned the time travel dream, didn't I?" They both nod in affirmation. "It's been bugging me a bit. How the hell did that work?" I think about it, then direct my gaze at Emily.

"Hey don't look at me," Emily says defensively. "I may know everything about this world but time travel is a concept that eludes me. I can hazard a guess if you'd like."

"Shoot," I tell her.

"It could be that the vision was somehow engraved or included in the gandalfar runes," Emily speculates. "I'm good at getting information, but I'm still no magus. The intricacies of magic escape me, especially when the magic in question is thousands of years old and we don't know even a possible tenth of what we could about it. It's completely plausible that Brimir or Sasha slipped the memories into the runes. Maybe some magical items or maybe the other runes have other memories or ways of getting them?"

The three of us think about this. "Okay, so let's not think about how I got that memory or the details like whether or not anything I did mattered or if it was basically a simulation, and instead dissect the details for any importance," I tell the two of them.

"So you woke up in a field, met Sasha-"

"The details of whom I completely nailed!" Emily interjects enthusiastically, interrupting Louise.

"Somehow," Louise confirms. "Then you met with the founder himself, helped stall an army of things I've never even heard of before opening a box and being warped out of the memory. Any idea what any of that means?"

"... Nope," I reply. "I mean, the contents of the box were completely obvious, but that still raises a few question."

"Wait, what?" Emily says.

"What do you mean it was obvious?" Louise asks.

I look at the two of them. "Seriously? You two didn't get it?" They shake their heads. "I mean come on. The Vali leader-"

"Valig," Emily corrects.

"The volleyball leader can apparently control minds? A way to counter it? It's obvious!"

They shake their head again. "Drawing a blank," Louise informs me.

"Well, it was 6000 years ago, I'm sure it won't matter much," I say with a dismissive shrug. "Whatever. Let's go enjoy the party."

"Don't have to tell me twice! Come on! There's these food things I really want to try over here, those dumpling things, you know?" Emily says as she grabs Louise.

"Wait, why me?" Louise asks.

"The nobles keep giving me weird looks when I'm not near you or Josh. It's weird. Now come on! Dumplings!"

Then Emily dragged Louise off and away leaving me alone to ponder and contemplate the mysteries of life and the universe. As I do that, I notice Tabitha standing off in the corner all by her lonesome. Being in a similar situation myself, I decided to approach her and start a conversation.

"Hey Tabby."

"Hello Josh."

Wow, we are so good at conversation. The best, one might say.

"So... whatcha doin'?" I ask her.

"Standing," she replies.

"Why?"

"Nothing else to do."

"Not one for parties?"

"No."

"Yeah, me neither. I mean, I can appreciate a good celebration and I'm not one to turn down free food and everything, but starting conversations with people you barely know is kind of difficult, you know?"==

She's doesn't respond.

"Oh yeah, I guess this is kind of similar to that, now that I think about it," I muse to myself. "Sorry about that, I guess."

"I don't mind," Tabitha says.

"That's a relief. By the way, where's Kirche? Aren't you two really close friends?"

Tabitha motions in a direction with her staff, and I glance in that direction. I then see Emily and Kirche at the food table arguing about something while Louise simply facepalms in the background. The food table's a slight distance away so I can't hear much, but I can make out bits and pieces. Something about which flavor is better. How weird.

"How weird." Sometimes my brain and mouth really are in sync!

"Indeed," Tabitha agrees.

"I feel like I should go over there and break up the argument before it turns into a catfight. Now is hardly the time or place for that." Those should only be held when there's a pool a water or a vat of gelatin close by. "See you later Tabby, always a pleasure talking with you."

"Goodbye," Tabitha says with a brief nod.

*Scene Break*

A few days after the party (catfights were averted for all those wondering. You may be disappointed if you wish) me and Guiche were chilling at some bar. Why were we there? That's a valid question.

"Why the hell are we here?" I ask Guiche who was sitting next to me. The same Guiche that was currently dead drunk and falling asleep on the counter. "Ah, that was it. Get drunk off our assess in enemy territory. Smart thinking you idiot."

"Enemy territory? And what's that mean?"

The newcomer was some random bar patron. Some alcohol in his breath indicate an inebriated state. Hell, let's mess with him, that's half the fun of bars.

"Sorry, as an intellectual, any area with an average IQ lower then 20 is considered a hostile environment."

His expression indicates confusion. I don't hesitate to use this to my advantage.

"There! That's the look!" I say enthusiastically.

"What look?" He asks, seemingly a little miffed.

"That one! The look of an idiot who's just been told he's an idiot! You have no idea how rare it is to find that look, some people just don't like informing others of how incompetent they are! I wish I could take a picture," I say wistfully.

"You little brat! What's yer name kid?" he asks, clearly getting ready for a brawl.

"Joshua Springfield, also known as That Random Kid from Tristain, nice to meet you mister..." I trail off to get his name. Instead I get a punch. An easily dodged punch, but I don't recall most drunk people having enough coordination to throw a half decent anything.

Enemy status: Slightly inebriated, furious. A bad combination. Dodge wild haymaker, remove self from chair to secure better fighting stance. Retaliate against man with strike to face to disorient, followed by punch to stomach. A hard enough strike could cause regurgitation of man's alcohol, in which case dodge backwards because I do not want vomit all over this jacket, I just got it cleaned. After the guy vomits, finish with leg sweep to put him on the ground, followed by last strike to head to knock unconscious.

I then proceed to ignore that entire plan, grabs Guiche's now empty wine bottle and hit the guy over the head with it so hard that he gets knocked out immediately. I then look at the bottle.

"Damn thing didn't break," I note. Hollywood lied to me! ... Again! "Maybe I just need to do it again."

I glance over at the still sleeping Guiche, contemplating whether or not to test the bottle's durability on him. OH! I remembered what we were doing here! It was an idea that me and Guiche came up with. We go into bars and get into barfights and beat the crap out of any soldiers present to lower morale! Right. You think I'd remember that since this is like the fifth bar we've been to tonight. Probably why Guiche just decided "**** it, I'm getting shitfaced as hell, we've done enough for the day."

"Yeah he's probably got the right idea, I think we're done for the day," I say as I stand up and prepare to go. Of course I can't do just that, as another guy blocks my path. I briefly glance at all the crap he's wearing to hide his face and wonder if the bottle would last against something like that.

"Excuse me, you said you are from Tristain?" He asks.

"... Yeeeeeeeah?" I ask, purposely drawing the syllable out.

"Then Charlotte... Sorry, Chevalier Tabitha, you know her?" he asks again.

"Again, yeeeeeeeah?" I ask. Then it hits me. "Wait, Charlotte? Oh! You're some kind of loyalist! Or a rebeller who's not fond of the Joseph dynasty."

He nods. "Could you deliver this letter to her?" he asks as he hands me a letter.

"Sure," I say as I grab the letter and stuff it in my pocket. I don't bother asking what's in the letter. Mostly because it's not any of my business, and partly because I'm far too tired to care about things by this point. I kind of want to get to bed and rest up, I've been doing a lot of beating people over the head with stuff today. I glance back at the still unconscious Guiche. ... Speaking of...

*Scene Break*

Guiche still seemed pretty miffed as we joined up with everyone the next day. I honestly don't know why.

"You smashed a bottle over my head!" Guiche complains.

"I didn't smash a bottle over your head, I experimented with a bottle over your head," I correct.

"And what was the experiment exactly?" Guiche asks, not convinced.

"What would it take for the bottle to break apart? The other guy I smacked with it didn't even cause a crack. You must have an abnormally hard head. Hmmm. You are an earth mage. Maybe someone's magical affinity affects body structure, with earth mages having harder bone structures? This needs further testing," I murmur to myself, wondering what effect water, wind, fire and void affinities could have on someone's body. Before I can contemplate that, I remember something I needed to do.

"Guiche, you know where Tabitha is? I needed to give her something."

Guiche ponders for a minute. "I think she had a room somewhere in the inn we were all staying. I imagine she'd be there."

"Thanks buddy. See you in a bit."

And with that, my epic quest to track down the girl with the looks of Touko and the personality of Nagato began! Well... that depends on your definition of epic. If by "epic" you mean "take five minutes to walk around the apartment and find her in her room with her door open as she sits on her bed reading a book," epic, then I'm glad I'm not you. You sound boring as hell.

"Yo, Tabby," I say with a wave of my hand.

She glances up from her book and looks at me silently. Watching me. Judging me. Waiting for me to slip up and fail. Waiting for the end to come and for the time for her to pass judgement. Tabitha, the judge of the damned, will wait for all eternity if she needs to, but her judgement will be passed! ... And I will never know where that thought came from.

"If you're wondering what I'm doing here, some random guy in a bar asked me to give you a letter," I say as I pull the letter from my pocket. "I think he was a loyalist or something? The details elude me now."

Tabitha shuts her book and gets up. She walks over to me and grabs the envelope containing the letter, opens it and reads it over. As she reads it, Tabitha's face actually begins to show worry. Shiiiiiiit, that's bad, isn't it? If it's got Tabitha concerned then... Now I'm curious as hell. CanIseecanIsee? No, wait. Gotta ask with more tact then that.

"CanIseeitcanIseeit?"

This is one of the situation where brain and mouth being in sync is bad. Tabitha briefly looks at me, then hands me the letter. Tactless approach successful! The letter was interesting enough. In short, turns out there are people who aren't too fond of Joseph as king. Short lived rebellions and attempts to actually kidnap the guy failed (though they get major credit for trying). Any official group they had was disbanded not long after that. Not much a choice, I suppose. After that, a few men like the guy that gave me the letter infiltrated the ranks of the Gallian army. Near the end of the letter the guy is openly wondering what would happen if Tabitha declared her status as rightful heir to the throne.

"So what would happen? I mean besides you becoming queen once we kick the guy's ass?" I ask.

"I don't know," Tabitha says. She sounds like she really means it too.

I glance back at the letter and note a mention of something that the king can do. Something about teleporting about with some weird spell. Probably something void. Figures. How come the bad guys get everything awesome? I mean Louise has explosions which are nice, but what else do we have? Dispel? Derflinger does the same thing in much less time. Illusion? We haven't even used that since the Albion war! The damn spell's useless! Tifa's mind wipe? Useful once or twice, I guess, but good luck getting any time to use that when you really need to. Meanwhile Joseph has access to giant freaking steel monstrosities, can teleport and who knows what else! Also technically the pope's just kind of a dick, and not necessarily evil, but he can open doors to other worlds! Why can't we do that! Not only that, but he's got a glowing popesitck! I want a glowstick!

"Whatever. I'm done thinking for the day," I say as I prepare to walk out the door and head back to my room. I'm about to say goodbye when I'm stopped by a slight tugging on my sleeve. I turn and look to see Tabitha holding onto my sleeve and looking at me expectingly.

"... Yes?" I ask.

"Advice," she says quickly.

"Hm? About what? Oh! On what to do?"

She nods. "I wanted your opinion."

"In my opinion, I'm getting kind of tired of this crap. Seriously, can't we ever just have a nice normal day to enjoy ourselves? Nope, war. Nope, evil tyrant king. Nope, some other pointless evil. What I want is a vacation. Somewhere nice, like an abandoned cabin in the woods to blow off some steam. No one to dick around with the good times, plenty of trees to climb and good times all around. Oh well. I suppose it wouldn't necessarily hurt if you went up and said 'I'm the one rightful heir to the throne, that jerkass just waltzed up and stole the crown.' ... Not exactly like that of course." Knowing Tabitha, I would half expect her to say exactly that if she announced her lineage, just because I mentioned saying it that way. I think she has more common sense than that, but it never hurts to be safe. "Well, in the end it's your choice. I don't think I should really have any say on matters involving the monarchy of a nation. So," despite how cliche it may sound, "just do whatever you think you should. But most importantly, don't ask me for opinions. Okay?"

... I think I confused her even more. The look on her face is less, "Ah, thank you for answering my question," and more, "... What the flying **** were you talking about?" Oops. This is why my opinion doesn't matter!

"Well, I'm out. See ya Tabby," I respond.

"Goodbye," Tabitha says with a final nod as I leave her room.

With a sigh of exhaustion, I head back for mine and Louise's room. I'll still never understand why me and Louise are always sharing a room. I mean, I guess it makes sense, boyfriend/girlfriend and all that, but it's never something we decide. It's not like me or Louise makes a conscious statement that, "hey! We need to share rooms!" It's not even any of our friends setting it up, it always just happens. The inn keeper hands out keys to the rooms, and me and Louise are always the last ones who have to share a room. It's weird.

I walk in to our room and see Louise sitting at the table the room came with briefly give a jump of surprise before nearly slamming the book she had shut. Don't ask, don't ask, don't ask-

"You came home late," Louise asks me.

YES! I didn't get a chance to ask what the book is!

"What's the book?"

And I immediately ruin it. Couldn't even give me one victory, could you brain? Louise briefly blushes, then stands up and puts the book away in a drawer.

"Nothing whatsoever. Just something Emily asked me to proofread," Louise says as she calmly walks over to the bed to sit down.

What could Emily possibly want Louise to proofread? Whatever.

"In response to your question, I was chatting with Tabitha."

"Why were you chatting with Tabitha?"

Oh god. That tone. That's a bad tone. Quick! Lie your way out of this! You can avoid bad end, just never admit fault! Wait.

"Some guy wanted to give her a letter. Something of an update on how people not exactly loyal to Joseph are faring."

Lesson of the day: When the truth is less likely to get you killed, unless it is vitally important you not give the truth, go with that. Even if lies are more fun.

"What do you mean?" Louise asks. "What kind of an update?"

"Usual stuff. They're not doing so hot, and were wondering if Tabitha coming out and saying she's the one who was supposed to be queen would improve anything."

Louise digests that information and ponders it. "What does Tabitha think? Does she actually want to become the queen?"

"She asked my opinion on it, for some reason and-"

"See! There are people who value what you say besides me!" Louise says triumphantly.

"Yeah, and I'm still left wondering why. I told her it was her choice. Partly because that's exactly what it is, partly because I really shouldn't have anything to do with choices that determine the monarchy of a nation. It seems a bit weird to be trusting me with that kind of thing."

"Whatever happens, I don't think it could get much worse then what it currently is," Louise says in thought.

"Uh huh," I say dismissively as I flip to a random page. "Oh, this seems good."

"What are you talking-" Louise stops when she sees the book in my hands. Her face goes a previously unseen shade of red. "When did you get that?"

"While you were contemplating what Tabitha thought of being queen, I snuck it out of the drawer. That's why you lock things. Not that it would have helped, I'd have just gotten the key and unlocked it as well. Now, this page seems good. 'I pin the princess down to the bed and push my lips against her own-'"

"NO! Give that back right now!" Louise screams as she tries to snatch the book from my grasp. I move it out of the way and continue reading out loud.

"Wow Louise, you're into some kinky stuff. Thought I don't know if you have the tongue dexterity to try that on the princess. Quite an imagination though."

"I told you, Emily wrote it!" she yells as she tries again to get the book from my hands. "She just told me to proofread it!"

"Earlier I heard 'asked to' rather then 'told to' proofread it," I say with another glance at the pages. "Holy crap, this stuff's... what's the word?"

"Embarrassing beyond all belief?" Louise offers, with a few more swipes at the book.

"Hardcore, would fit a bit better. I mean shit, she goes into detail on this stuff." My eyes briefly scan Louise. "Maybe a few enhancements to the details, but whatever."

Louise stops for a moment and then glares at me. "What do you mean 'enhancements?'"

"Not what you may be thinking," I tell her. "I'm willing to accept poetic license on this, but I'm pretty sure there isn't a single human being on any planet who has a tongue long enough to reach the womb through the genitals." I think. I could be terribly, terribly wrong. And now I'm going through my knowledge of biology and imagining a tongue long enough to perform such a feat. ... I want the part of my brain responsible for this current mental image lobotomized immediately.

"She doesn't mean it literarily, it was a figure of speech!" Louise defends, before blushing bright red as she realizes she just defended porn that her maid wrote featuring herself and the queen of the nation she lives in. Yep. This is a conversation we both get to have.

"Yo, what's up?" Emily asks as she walks in on this scene. Everything freezes in place. "... I walk in on something?"

"Yesnowyoushouldleaverightnowimmediatelybeforethis situationgetsanyworsethatitalreadyis," Louise says in her attempt to outdo John Moschitta Jr. Good, but not quite good or fast enough.

"So that and 'I should go'?" Emily asks, to which Louise nods furiously.

"No wait! I had a question for you," I tell Emily, prompting her to turn and look at me, waiting for the question. I hold up the book and give it a tap on the cover. Emily goes beat red.

"Okay, I can explain that. You see-"

"We all need a hobby, I get it. I just wanted to know, you're not selling any of these are you?"

Emily hesitates. "Laws dictate that I am not allowed to make a cent off of someone else's creative works," she says quickly, as if it was a line she spent hours rehearsing.

I briefly skin through the pages, before finding a few of the stories I was looking for. "Yeah, since they exist I just want a cut of the profits from stories I'm in. Haven't looked at them yet, but if they sell, I figure I deserve at least a few cents for porn I'm in."

... That is a sentence I said. What is this place doing to me? Well, might as well go all in and read the damn thing.

"****ing hell, this is absurd," I remark after the part that demonstrates some "interesting" uses for Louise's illusion spell.

"Well there is certainly ****ing," Emily replies.

"And this book is certainly seeming like it came from hell," Louise adds.

"I resent that statement," Emily says.

I ignore that and read the story another story I'm in.

"... Tabitha's a trap?" I ask.

"No, no no. That's an invention of the story," Emily says very quickly. "I am anywhere between 99 and 100 percent sure Tabitha is female. They really wanted some boy's love down at the inn."

Okay, I think I have enough will to live left inside me to read one last one.

"... I'm done," I say as I close the book and work on repressing these memories. "I've seen a lot of messed up shit, but I think this is what broke me. Congratulations Emily. I don't know if it's your imagination or the audience you write for, but you've managed in five minutes what the internet couldn't in 16 years. I'm going to bed now."

With that, I walk over to the bed and climb in. "Keep writing. The world shouldn't be deprived of what you've given it. Also, I am genuinely curious what kind of profits you bring in. Night Emily."

"Y-yeah. Night," she says as she walks out. After that, Louise also being done with the day, changes into her pajamas and climbs into the bed as well.

There's a silence as neither of us quite wish to discuss this situation. Well, as mentally broken as I am know, I have to admit that this situation is kind of hilarious. You don't get many opportunities to read porn about you and your friends in the same room as the author who is also your personal maid. It's quite funny.

"... If you ever ask me to do anything in that book," Louise starts.

"No, I value my life," among other parts of my body. Seriously, that tongue thing is weird.

*Scene Break*

The next day started off harmlessly enough. It was pretty quiet so I took the opportunity to contemplate the status of things. As little as it does, this war does still concern me so let's see how things are going. ... It's a war. ... Well excuse me for not knowing what defines a successful and a failed war! For all I know we're losing this war because we don't have enough goldfish crackers or something like that.

"Hey Joshua," a voice calls out, interrupting my thought process.

"Oh for ****'s sake, what are you doing here?" I ask Julio.

Julio, like the other few times, doesn't seem to care that I really don't like him and gives the most genuine smile ever seen on the face of my Earth or other.

"It's nothing as serious as you may think," I never think seriously. Right now I'm thinking about tying you to a rocket and kickstarting the Halkegnian Space Program. "I've heard that you and you're friends were busy dropping enemy morale. Good work."

To be fair they really didn't need out help with starting fights. Who knows what that did to their morale, but we certainly didn't help.

"Of course that's not all I have to talk to you about," Julio says, actually sounding serious for once.

"And that is?"

"I simply wish to say that I am very sorry for what happened before," Julio tells me.

"Um... What 'before' are we talking about, we have a few to chose from," I respond. "Maybe you mean the obvious one where you tried to kill me?"

Julio nods.

"So you point a gun at me, tell me outright that you have no problem with killing me, and you think it'd be alright because you said you're sorry."

"Please understand. You have those that you want to protect no matter what, right?" I nod. "It is the same as us for when we wish to reclaim the holy land."

"It's a patch of land, who cares about dirt and grass!"

"It is very important dirt and grass," Julio responds, sounding rather annoyed.

"Whatever. This is why I don't like getting wrapped up in people's religious beliefs. You want to start a crusade, I won't stop you, most on account of not really being able to. Just keep us out of it."

"Very well," Julio says, once again giving that annoying smile. "Oh, but do keep in mind, even if we were to stop actively trying to get you to join the crusade, that doesn't mean you aren't a part of it."

And that means... What, exactly?

"And I think you're done here, go away you fake priest," Emily says as she pops up out of nowhere and starts pushing Julio away from me. "Go. I got business with master here."

After pushing Julio down the corridor and far out of sight, Emily bounces back and comes up to me.

"Phew, got that asshole taken care of. Anyway, like I said. Business time," Emily says seriously. "You know I've got my network, right?"

"Just skip the intro and get to the details, you already know I trust pretty much everything you say. Even if your hobbies are somewhat dubious."

"Hey, there is big demand for that stuff back at the academy," Emily says to defend herself. "But what I write isn't important at the moment. Technically neither is this, but it could become rather important, so I'm going to mention it. I just got this tip in a few hours ago, but apparently the pope is setting up some kind of event or announcement for tomorrow. Any ideas what that's about?" Emily asks.

"Wait, wait. You don't know something? And you're asking me?"

Emily pouts. "Hey, I'm not omniscient." Could've fooled me. "I mean, I can really only find out what anyone I know knows, and they've been playing this event really close to the chest. I mean I have an idea or two, but no confirmation or leads. It's kind of annoying."

I bet.

"I'll keep and eye out and let you know if anything comes up," I tell her.

She nods. "I'll see if I can get anything else. Though considering the event is tomorrow, I think I won't need to worry for too long about not knowing anything."

"And that's always pleasant."

"I guess we'll just have to deal with it as it comes," Emily says with a sigh. Wow, this is really pissing her off, isn't it? A concern I voice.

"Huh?" Emily seems surprised. "N-no, it's not that. We've gone into things like this plenty of times with no knowledge. I've just got some other things on my mind, nothing important."

"You said the same thing about the stuff you just said a minute or two ago," I point out.

"And it is of dubious importance," Emily retaliates.

"I dunno, I feel like something troubling my maid is pretty important. Whatever. I'm not going to interrogate you about it or anything. Just let me know if you want to talk about it. I'm willing to listen."

"I'll keep that in mind. And Josh?"

"Yeah?"

Emily briefly glances around, then gives me a quick kiss on the cheek. "Thanks." And then she's off, probably to do more investigating.

I spent a few seconds investigating the area, making sure there were no witnesses. Can never be too sure. If anyone saw that, then they'd tell Louise and Louise would kill me before I get a chance to explain and dying would just ruin the plans I had for the rest of my life.

*Scene Break*

Since nothing else happened, I'll skip to the next day. That day started when my alarm clock let me know that it was apparently set to "cheering crowd that would just not shut up" mode.

"What the hell?" I wonder as I get up and head to the window to see what's going on.

"Shut up," Louise mutters from the bed as she pulls a pillow over her head to block out the noise.

"Not gonna happen, something's going on out there," I tell her, observing the mob of people in front of a stage.

"Agh, we have to go check it out, don't we?" Louise mumbles.

"Not a morning person, are you?" I muse as Louise gets up and we get ready to head on out.

When we went out, we managed to eventually find a place in the crowd where we can get a good look at the stage.

"Is that the pope?" Louise wonders as we look at the stage.

"That'd be a yes."

We turn and see Emily standing next to is with her sniper rifle strapped to her back.

"What's with the uh..." I gesture to the gun.

"Precaution," she says, not really answering the question. "Okay, good news and bad news. Good news, I was able to find out what was up with this gathering."

"And we're to assume that whatever it's about is the bad news?" Louise asks.

"Well, from a certain point of view it could be seen as terrible but-"

Emily is interrupted by the pope beginning a sermon or something. She was right, this is terrible. At protests coming from the crowd, the pope tries to shush them and drops a bombshell on them. Not literally, that would've been awesome.

"Gallians, you are making a big mistake. The so called king of yours is not the rightful heir to the throne."

... Damn it.

"What's he talking about?" Louise asks.

"Oh shit, we never went over that with you, did we?" I remember. "I'd explain it now, but he's about to take care of that for us."

"Let me now introduce the rightful heir to the throne, the daughter of the deceased Grand Duke Orleans, Princess Charlotte."

The just named Charlotte proceeds to take the stage, and unfortunately was not a giant Minnie worm that would eat the pope's head, though I can dream.

"T-Tabitha!" Louise cries in surprise, though it's kind of hard to her over the uproar the crowd is making.

"Anything you wish to say to pacify the crowd, Princess Charlotte?" the Pope asks.

Tabitha shakes her head, and I release a breath I didn't even know I was holding. I was totally expecting her to repeat word for word what I told her not to say. Thank God for that.

"Then, we are already prepared with a fleet to take Princess Charlotte to Lutece to reclaim the land from that thief," the Pope says with a point of his stick to the horizon.

Yeah, there were ships there, but I was more focused on something else.

"What the hell is a Lutece?" I ask no one in particular. No one answers me as they're too busy watching the Gallian morale drop exponentially. It was a thing of beauty. Or terror, if you're one of them.

A slightly cold feeling touches my cheek, and I look to see Emily peering down the scope of her sniper rifle at the fleet.

"Emily, can you please not keep the muzzle of your gun next to my head?"

"Safety's on, don't worry," she says, not addressing the concern whatsoever. "Checking something out."

"How good is that scope?" I wonder.

"Good enough to spot a dragon sized golem approaching the fleet. Oh."

"Oh?"

"Might wanna get down," she says, lowering her sniper rifle.

"Why?"

My question is unanswered as a boom goes off near the fleet, drawing everyone's attention. Unfortunately that attention was drawn to a giant flaming ball of light and-

"IT BURNS!" I say as I cover my eyes. "IT'S LIKE A FLASHBANG GOING OFF IN MY MIND! THE HELL WAS THAT?!"

"It's King Joseph and his void magic!" Louise offers, probably shielding her eyes as well.

"You sure about that princess?" Emily asks.

"Yes, and stop calling me that!"

"Ah, okay. I'm good now," I say as I blink a few times. "Much better. Okay, what was the discussion?"

Then an even bigger explosion went off.

"DAMN EVERYTHING! IT'S LIKE A SUN HAS GONE SUPERNOVA IN MY BRAIN! MY EYES!"

It's there that everyone finally starts panicking. It must have taken a bit of time for it all to set in.

"Holy shit, he vaporized the entire fleet," Emily says incredulously.

"What's he hoping to accomplish?" Louise wonders.

"Blinding everyone in the vicinity?" I wonder as my eyes finally start to recover. Not soon enough to tell me what the hell just grabbed me and is carrying me through the air, so I'll let someone else fill in that blank.

"Slyphid?" Louise asks. "What are you doing here?"

"Helping!" She tells us.

"Ugh, my poor retinas," I moan. "Later. Where's Tabitha?"

"Big sis is being looked after by the paladins!" Slyphid tells us.

"And we're on our way to attack Mr. King Void User?" I ask.

"Yes kyui!"

"Then onward!" I shout bombastically as I point towards where the explosion were coming from.

It's time for Joshua Springfield's good/bad news corner! Which would you like to hear first?

*sounds of a small children's TV audience shouting "Bad news! Bad news!"*

Well tough shit you pessimistic little brats, you're hearing the good news first. ... I should have been a children's TV show host.

Anyway, the good news was that as we flew we were able to spot a small ship, likely the one that Joseph was hiding in, and we didn't have to deal with any of the aerial defenses because all the golems were being distracted by dragon paladins. The bad news, was that there was a single golem, holding a jewel in it's clutches. Why was this bad news? The jewel was a bright red and looked like it held fire inside. Now why was this bad news?

"Fire jewel," Emily says, looking at the golem through her scope.

"What?"

"It's elven magic!" Slyphid explains. "Very dangerous elven magic! Nothing normal magic can do against it!"

"Oh, the mini sun. That's bad. So he's going to blow that up? Can we destroy it or something?"

"No, that's dangerous. We could wind up setting it off ourselves. Instead, gimme a second," Emily says before she starts muttering something to herself. "Got it!"

She points the sniper rifle at the golem as we fly towards it, then points it in a completely unrelated goddamn direction and pulls the trigger. I open my mouth to as what that was supposed to accomplish, but then the bullet tears through the golem's wrists, severing the hands and causing the fire jewel to start dropping.

"Grab it!"

I grab it on instinct as Emily yells at me. Warmer then I thought it'd be. It's weird.

"How'd you do that?" Louise asks her as we resume the flight towards the ship.

"Sniping is really just math, you know, taking all the vectors and factors and stuff into account. I'm good at math," Emily says proudly.

"Right, well if we ever need someone killed using math we'll be sure to let you know," I tell her as we reach the endgame.

The ship we approached wasn't that big, which meant we had a good view of the deck. On the deck were two people. Since we haven't officially met Joseph yet, I'll deign to describe him. Giving me another point in favor of my theory, he had blue hair which meant he was clearly related to Tabitha. He also had a short beard, something Tabitha didn't have. But really what stood out was not really how he looked, yet that was kind of what stood out. See, after all this build up about him, how he's a monster that warrants a crusade of sorts to stop him before claiming the holy land, I don't really know what I expected. I certainly didn't expect him to appear so normal. Sheffy, was there too, but she's been introduced already.

"Whatever, let's get started," I say as I jump off of Slyphid and onto the ship. "Ah, shit."

That was because when I jumped off I dropped the fire stone thing, and it landed on the floor and rolled over to Joseph and Sheffy. Oops.

"So that's where it went," Joseph says as he picks up the stone. "Thank you for returning it."

"My king, please allow me to dispose of him," Sheffy says. "I wish to take care of him personally."

"Geez Sheffy, such hostility. Someone piss in your coffee today?"

Her response is to summon up six golems.

"So that's a yes?"

Before the golems can move, one blows up and another gets it's head taken off by a wandering bullet. Louise and Emily appear on my left and right respectively.

"How nice of you to show up," I remark.

"How nice of you to jump off the dragon hundreds of feet in the air," Louise says.

"Right, right. I'll get these other four."

Since golems are kind of squishy, oddly enough, they died pretty quickly. Then they rebuilt themselves pretty easily. Damn. These again?

"These golems are enhanced with water magic, just like the ones in the forrest of Saxe-Gotha," Sheffield tells us. "Good luck being able to defend your master long enough to cast that spell again.

"Emily, any weaknesses?" I ask as I dodged a punch and slice this golem in half for like the fifth freaking time.

"They shouldn't be automated and need some kind of control from Myoznitnirn," Emily says, shooting one in the face. "Just gotta break her concentration and we win. Any ideas?"

"Just one," I say, pointing my wrist at Myoz. "Rest in peace."

*BANG*

"Ah!" Myoz cries out, grasping her shoulder where the bullet dug into. Having lost her control, the golems fall over, completely inert. I then proceed to blow away the smoke gathering around my left wrist. Damn, I love these hidden blades, even if hidden swiss army knife seems more appropriate.

"What the hell was that?" Louise asks.

"Hidden gun. Gotta get more ammo later, but that shot was good for now," I say.

"Yeah, nice job hitting her shoulder," Emily says. "Disrupts her concentration, but probably won't kill her. Kind of what I expected from you."

"I was aiming for her leg."

"Exactly what I was expecting from you," Louise says.

Ouch.

I turn and look at Joseph, the mad king who's been the cause of this entire story arc. I look at him and still can't help but be surprised. He seems... Kind of pathetic. That's not the face of a mass murderer, that's the face of someone who's lost hope. Hope for what?

"Hmph. How young," he says. "How old are you?"

... Shit, how old am I? I was sixteen before I came here, but Halkegnia has a different year system then Earth, and how long have I been here anyway? A year, maybe a little more?

"Seventeen," I decide to go with.

"It shows," Joseph says sparing a glance at me before directing his gaze at the fire stone. "You have the same look in your eyes that Harold did."

Um... I'll just assume Harold is Tabitha's dad or something like that.

"Let go of the stone!" Louise yells at him.

"I used to be like him once, you know," he says, completely ignoring Louise. "Young, believing in a distorted sense of justice, believing I could solve all the world's problems. If I could become a stronger man, and get rid of all my cowardice and faults. And yet, those dreams faded with time, as many things do. How disappointing, isn't it?"

... Not how I expected this to go.

*BANG*

Emily fires her gun at Joseph, but he disappears and reappears off to the side.

"Such toys won't work, I'm afraid," he says. "This is my void spell, accelerate. I wonder why I was the one who got this spell. Perhaps God is trying to send me a message?"

... Really not how I expected this to go. I move forward and try to slash him with my hidden blades. I'd have used Derflinger, but I didn't bring him because I didn't think something like this would have happened today, so I'm left with these. He teleports (okay, it's not teleporting, but it's close enough) again, and appears behind me. Emily and Louise are behind me pointing their weapons at wherever he appears, only for him to disappear again. How annoying.

"Damn everything, you are annoying!" I yell at him.

"Annoying?" Joseph wonders. "That's not something I've heard used to describe myself."

"Well it's freaking accurate!" Emily says, punctuating it with another easily dodged bullet.

*CLANG*

The sound of metal hitting metal reverberates through the silence. Even Joseph seems a little confused at what happened, and I'm still trying to process that second. The fact that Joseph has a knife in his hand now acts as one clue. Oh, I get it. He tried to stab me, and I managed to parry it. ... What the hell?

"You caught that?" He seems genuinely impressed. "Think you could do it again?"

"No, but I've been wrong before."

He swipes at me repeatedly. Accelerate is no joke, I can't even follow what the hell he's doing. It's mostly up to luck and instinct at the moment. Well, and me ripping off Archer. It's simple really. Leave a hole in your defense, and they'll probably aim for it. Even if you can't see them aim for it, you can tell it's what they're going for so you know where to block. This marks the second time Fate/Stay Night saved my life here. Go figure.

But eventually I start tiring, as to be expected from trying to keep up with something that is moving faster than is physically possible to track. He manages to get in a lucky blow. I can tell that, because I don't quite remember the knife being stuck in my stomach. Oh hey, I can't feel anything.

"Poison?" I ask.

"Just a paralyzing poison, nothing lethal," he says as I fall flat on my face. How dignified.

"Josh!" Louise and Emily cry out.

"No, I'm fine, just can't move. Help?"

They get ready to do something, but Joseph teleports right in front of Emily. She tries to shoot him, but he grabs the sniper rifle and tosses it over board. Damn. It was a nice gun. Emily takes the opportunity to give him a solid blow to the stomach. He stabs her in the arm before moving over to Louise and simply knocking her down to the floor.

"Wow. This went really bad really quickly," I must from my spot on the floor.

"You regret not being able to stop me?" He asks.

"More like I regret getting out of bed this morning," I say thoughtfully.

"Yeah. Today's kind of sucked," Louise agrees.

"Agreed," Emily affirms.

"Do you wish you could do better?" Joseph asks.

"Considering I was able to block attacks I wasn't physically capable of seeing, I'm quite proud of myself," I admit.

"I missed every time!" Emily and Louise complain at the same time.

"Yeah, you guys really need to work on that."

I get a dual slap from the both of them.

"What the hell?"

"Only one of my arms is paralyzed," Emily tells me.

"I got forced to the ground really hard, not stabbed," Louise says.

"Goddamn it," I say. "Whatever. Do your worst vile scum!"

Joseph seems amused and readies to throw the fire jewel so he can snipe it with his magics and kill everything. Then-

"WAIT!" I yell. "Any type of rant or explanation for why you're being a dick?"

"I simply want to see hell," Joseph tells me.

... That's it? No grand plans to take over the world, or motives dating back to when he was young? He's just a dick? I like it. There's always some reason the bad guy's a bad guys, and it can never just be a simple "he's evil, deal with it." Sometimes you just gotta let dicks be dicks.

Before anyone can voice any complaints about that, his ring starts to glow. Wait, he has a ring? Wait, void user, everyone has fancy rings. Suddenly, he almost seems to completely change. His expression is that of surprise. What's with that?

"Joseph, your highness," comes a completely different voice stepping onto the ship.

"Oh," Louise starts.

"For," then Emily.

"****'s sake, what are you doing here?!" I finish as the pope walks up to us.

Then the pope and Joseph had a conversation as they ignored us. I'm sure it was important, something about the pope's memory recall void spell, but when things don't include me or aren't important to me in any way, I find it hard to find a reason to pay attention. Why should I care about being able to pull memories out of a ring? Louise and Emily ate it up, Emily was using her not paralyzed arm to take notes, but I don't care! I'm not a void mage and I don't care about void spells that don't blow stuff up!

Speaking of blowing stuff up, the fire stone that did just that dropped from Joseph's grasp and rolled over to me. ... Still can't move.

Ignoring that, it seams that Joseph had some kind of huge twisting revelation, because he's completely changed. Any sense of fight that he had has completely gone as he kneels to the ground. I feel like I missed something really important. Damn first-person perspective! Why can't I know what everyone is thinking all the time?

Eventually some paladins also drop by, as well as Tabitha and Slyphid, the latter of which has Emily's sniper rifle in her mouth.

"My Hecate!" Emily says as she forces herself up and grabs her gun, profusely thanking Slyphid for everything.

Lucky you, you're not fostering a stab wound or paralyzed. Tabitha briefly seems worried as she looks at me, but I try to convey the message of "ignore me, go kick the son of a bitch that stabbed me! Vengeance!" It seems to work, as Tabitha walks over to Joseph.

"Oh. Hello Charlotte," Joseph says to her. "It looks nice on you. Harold would be proud."

? Oh! Tabitha's wearing fancy stuff! How the hell did I never notice? I guess I'm so used to her in the academy outfit that I just sort of didn't think she'd ever wear anything different.

Joseph takes off his crown and places it on the floor near Tabitha.

"Here. It's hardly enough, but please accept it. And in the Church of Versailles you'll find an elf. Talk to him. My last command to him before I came here was to make an antidote for your mother."

... What the hell? Is this really the bad guy here? I mean he's more or less responsible for this war and a lot of people dying, especially when he just blew everyone up today. Still, I can't hate this guy for some reason. Tabitha seems to be thinking something vaguely similar.

"What happened to you?" Tabitha asks in a quiet voice.

"It's over," Joseph says. "I have no desire to see hell anymore."

Must have seen something pretty Earth shattering in the ring's memory.

"Go ahead, kill me," Joseph tells Tabitha. "Then everything really will be over."

"What happened to you," Tabitha asks again. Joseph doesn't respond. "What happened!"

Me, Louise and Emily exchange glances of horror, well as best as I can, the poison is just now starting to wear a bit. Tabitha, Tabitha, just got pissed and yelled at the of her lungs. I am so scared right now.

No one responds to anything, and Tabitha raises her staff, likely readying a spell. Then she looks at , now it's my decision? It's your Uncle, it's your choice, not mine! Screw it, I'm saying no. ... Wait, how do I do that, I can't shake my head. Wait. I have a mouth. I think the poison's made me kind of loopy.

"If it's of any concern, I vote for letting the guy live," I voice from my actually really comfortable spot in a small puddle of my own blood. "Before anyone, anyone!" I yell at the paladins who look ready to kick me off the ship. "Says anything, I say let him live because killing him wouldn't solve anything. You're gonna be queen, aren't you? Let's not start your reign with familicide. Granted, I'm just the guy lying in a puddle of his own blood who has an opinion that maybe two people care about, so what do I know?"

Someone seems ready to respond, but is interrupted by Sheffield coming right the hell out of nowhere, jumping on Joseph and then stabbing him in the chest.

"What the hell?!" I yell, feeling finally starting to return to my limbs.

The knife firmly in Joseph's chest, Sheffield then starts making out with him.

"... What the hell?" I say, voicing everyone's thought on the matter.

"Get out of here, let us be together," Myoznitnirn says.

"Fine by me!" I say as I force myself up and hop on Slyphid. "What, I'm the only one who wants out of here?"

Everyone still seems too focused on Sheffield. Why? It's not that interesting a sight. Oh, they're looking at the fire stone that Sheffy is holding.

"I'm the familiar of void-"

"A familiar of void," I correct from Slyphid. "Others fit that category as well!"

"Not the time!" Louise yells at me.

"I can control magic objects," Sheffy reminds us all. "I can easily set this off!"

"Is that our cue?" I wonder aloud.

The answer is apparently yes, as we all start going. Everyone got on their mount, and me, Louise, Emily and Tabitha rode Syphid. I got shotgun while Tabitha pilots. We take off and left the ship behind us all. I manage to resist the urge to look as I hear it go off. Twice is enough for having my corneas burned off. We rode in silence a part of the ways back until I got fed up with it.

"So," I begin, looking for a topic of some kind. "That happened."

Damn it brain, why do you suck sometimes?

"That's it?" Louise asks. "That's all you've got?"

"Well I'm sorry for not knowing where to go now that we're done with all that!" I complain. "Whatever. Tabitha, what about you? You feeling okay?"

She seems surprised. At least, surprise is what the emotion on her face looks like. I could just be misreading it.

"What?" She asks.

"I mean, you seemed really broken up about it at the ship. You okay?"

Tabitha doesn't say anything for a bit. "Fine."

"That didn't seem fine," I remark.

"Tabitha, do you need a hug?" Emily asks.

That seems to really surprise Tabitha.

"You know what, yeah," Emily says, nodding to herself. "Not know, since I can't reach, but the second we get on the ground, group hug. Everyone got that?"

There's a small silence as we try to let that sink in. A silence broken by Emil readying her sniper rifle.

"Everyone got that?" She repeats, slightly more cheerfully.

"Yesyesyes!" Me and Louise say. Tabitha simply nods a bit in approval.

"Kickass, hugs for all!" Emily says happily.

*Scene Break*

After we hit the ground and group hugged, the coronation continued and Tabitha was crowned queen of Gallia. Kickass, I now know and am friends with two queens. I could potentially control half the continent. ... Whoa. That kind of power shouldn't be put in my hands. I'll make sure to only abuse it when absolutely necessary. Like getting huge discounts on stuff at the store. Either way, Emily and Louise were off taking with everyone else about the events that happened, while I stood off on my own. Why? I was busy thinking about things. Where the hell do we go from here? I mean, technically we don't need a trilogy of story arcs, but something's bugging me. I don't know what, but I know there's something I'm missing at the moment.

As I ponder that, I feel something bump against my foot. I look down and see a small metal ball. Must have rolled up against me, I think as I bend down to pick it up.

7$S8174%Hdjjao-)jnw79&Ju68*yuOh)$16C689&%*^+|£R7/$9T-179j€*%^W-7^+%I^)67)(N*%€Suiyy

"Gah!" I yell, dropping the ball and grabbing my head. One hell of a feedback issue, I'll say that. So much junk data. That kind of stings.

"Found it!" a voice calls out.

"Wher- oh! There!"

I turn to the voices and see a small group of three. Spearheading the group was Mismatched Eyes, from that time we went to get Tabitha back from Alhambra. Unlike last time when she had a tank top, jeans and a sword that was like three times as large as her, she's wearing a short sleeved shirt, a skirt that came below her knees, and the sword was missing. Still got those mismatched eyes, one red and one blue.

To her right was a boy. He was slightly taller then her, maybe a by a few inches. He had a blue hooded jacket paired with a set of black jeans. He also had a blue baseball hat on, so I couldn't quite make out his hair color. Or maybe there's another way to find out things like that that I'm too lazy to figure out. And his eyes were also blue. Color coordination is your friend!

To the right of Mismatched eyes was a younger looking girl in a little blue dress, paired with a black scarf tied around her neck. She had blue hair that came down to her shoulders, and a matching pair of blue eyes. What kind of blue? I dunno, sky blue? Compared to the boy, hers is a lighter shade of blue.

When I make eye contact with the group they freeze up. Time to make first contact!

"Haven't seen you since that thing with the elf, how's it going?" I ask Mismatched eyes.

Mismatched eyes doesn't say anything, and instead turns right around. "Well, it's with you so it's probably all right."

"Oh! Mr. Joshua!" Mini blue says. "Elise is very happy to meet you!"

She accentuates the last sentence with a hug. Um... who-

"Elise was so excited that she couldn't sleep!" the little girl says. "She's been waiting for this since two chapters ago when she got the word!"

... Wha-

"Elise, calm down," the boy says as he grabs the third person person and yanks her off me. "Sorry, we don't quite get my little sister either. Though honestly 'don't quite get' is probably a massive understatement."

"How rude!" Elise says with faux anger. "Elise is just happy to meet MC after almost 16 chapters! She hasn't gotten any screen time at all!"

"And we'll keep it that way," Mismatched Eyes says, playing along as she tries to leave as soon as possible.

"Well any semblance of a cover you may have had was nuked from orbit a while ago, so mind answering a few question?" I ask.

"Of course!" Elise answers.

Mismatched Eyes sighs. "Yeah, you're right. Shouldn't hurt too much. These are my friends, Elise," Elise gives a small hop and pose at the mention of her name, "and Sam."

"Nice to meet you," Sam says with a nod in my direction.

"I'm..." Mismatched eyes hesitates for a minute.

"What, is your name that much a spoiler?" I ask.

"N-no! Of course not!" Mismatched eyes insists. "To you! I could tell you just fine and nothing would happen. It's just that if you mention me to them there could be trouble."

"Them?" I ask.

"You know! Them! Them!" Mismatched eyes says, emphasizing the point to hopefully make me realize what she's talking about. About a minute passes before she seems to realize I have no idea what she's talking about. "Oh, you haven't met them yet. Well, I suppose something to call me by wouldn't be bad. Um... How about Arturia?"

"Arturia?" Sam asks.

"Elise likes it!" the mini blue says with enthusiasm. "Is fitting!"

Well it's good to know that at least someone's prepared should a holy grail war randomly break out around us.

"Next, where's the sword?" I ask. "You had a giant one strapped to you back at the castle."

"Oh that's easy. Walking around with it strapped to my back draws a bit of suspicion, doesn't it?" Arturia says. "I could get it out at any point, but I don't really see a need to get it out."

"Alright, next one. Why do you the have this Apple of Eden?" I ask.

"Found it," Sam says. "Elise made me drop it, it rolled over to you."

"Was important!" Elise insists. "Elise got word from that Uncreative Bastard that she had to set up plot point!"

... I am so confused.

"No. Bad Elise. No cursing. Soap when we get home," Sam chastises her younger sister.

"Nooo! Is name though! Elise heard it from Charlotte! Ah! Not your Charlotte," Elise assures me. "Is different Charlotte from alternate timeline! Ah, not your timelines, other timelines!"

"Well, whatever. Next question. Were you the one that messed with the Elf's counter back then? It seems like something that shouldn't have happened."

Arturia nods. "Yeah, admittedly. I kind of turned it off so I could kick him in the shin, then forgot to fix it. I think I may have accidentally messed with your weird eyes to make you see that kind of stuff as well. After a thing that happened a year or two ago, I made up a sort of ward against mystic eye type things. I guess the Eagle Vision is very loosely similar. Sorry about that."

"Okay, that took care of a few question I had, while making a few more. I don't want any more questions created from answers, so I think this'll be the last one. Where'd the Gurren Lagann cosplayer go? She seemed fun to talk to."

"Spiral's off at her home," Arturia explains. "Something about an invasion, helping out her friends and stuff like that. I didn't want to go out alone, because it's always more fun with friends, so I invited Sam and Elise with me. I almost invited Isabella instead, but these two reminded me why that wasn't a very good idea."

"Is not good idea at all!" Elise says. "Could cause massive paradox! Not ready to introduce yet! Maybe in season 3, 4 at latest."

"Um... Sure, disregarding that last part, she's more or less right, I think," Sam says. "But I think we may have created more questions again. Should we head out?"

"Yeah, probably," Arturia says. "See ya Josh. You can hold onto that. Elise says you'll need it, and she usually isn't wrong about stuff like that. Emphasis on 'usually' but it certainly can't hurt."

"Bye Mister Joshua!" Elise says with a giant smile.

"Bye you three. Try not to be so confusing next time."

"I make no promises," Sam says with a shrug.

And with that, the three of them turn and head off, while I ponder what the hell just happened. Okay, a weird group, something about alternate timelines, like Sarina mentioned once that I almost forgot about, something about a bastard. ... I forget all of that at the moment and look at the Apple of Eden, hoping it'll provide me an answer of some sort.

Oh. That's... That's not good. We may have a problem.

***Author Notes***

Uncreative: ABOUT FREAKING TIME.

Joshua: What? You were busy with Empty Boundaries.

Uncreative: I wanted to get this chapter out last year! This was supposed to go up the same day as last chapter!

Joshua: Oh, well that is pretty bad. Anything about this chapter?

Uncreative: This chapter had a weird sort of writing style. I started with the beginning, as is to be expected. Then that part at the end with Arturia? That was originally just Arturia, but we'll get to that later. That part originally came at the beginning, during the party sequence at the beginning. Then that got moved to the end, then I deleted it because I wanted to change it a bit, then the chapter proceeded from the beginning to the end as usual. It was kind of weird.

Joshua: Okay. And it was oddly nice to see Emily's porn writing hobby come back up. I thought it was hilarious, if a bit disturbing.

Uncreative: Yeah, not sure where that came from. I just thought it'd be fun. Also, I personally found the line/discussion about Tabitha being a trap far more funny then it should be.

Joshua: I'm honestly surprised no one's come up with that one yet. ... I don't want to see it again.

Uncreative: Luckily I just have to make the joke, I don't actually have to see it.

Joshua: Lucky bastard.

Uncreative: Speaking of Uncreative Bastard, and since nothing else really happened worth discussing happened, let's talk about the epilogue thing with those three. Originally it was just Arturia, but considering her posse has grown substantially, I kind of wanted to at least start bringing in a few.

Joshua: What do you mean by that?

Uncreative: Originally Arturia's posse consisted of Spiral, who we saw with Arturia in her last appearance, and one other girl named Vallerie, though she hasn't shown up yet. Since then, it's grown to almost double digits. I plan ahead a lot for all the wrong things.

Joshua: What do you mean?

Uncreative: If you visit my profile you'll see that I have a whole bunch of story projects listed there. All of those stories, including a few I keep forgetting to put up there as well, are all part of what could be called season 1, and all of Arturia's posse won't be showing up in a starring role until season 3, like Elise mentioned.

Joshua: Speaking of which, what was up with her, she was weird.

Uncreative: I had faaaaaar too much fun writing her. Something about energetic 4th wall breaking characters is just too much fun to write.

Joshua: And the other two?

Uncreative: Sam is Elise's older sibling, and Arturia is their friend.

Joshua: ... That's it?

Uncreative: What? Like I said, they're, like, decades off at the rate I'm going. Either way, they won't be showing up again.

Joshua: In this story at least.

Uncreative: True. Next up on the list. I may have forgotten to mention it, but this was the season finale for part 2. Next chapter will be the start of the third and final part of this story, and let me tell you it is a real bitch thinking up what's going to happen. I have the basic plot thread mapped out, so now I just have to stretch it out so it's about the same length as this part and part 1.

Joshua: It shouldn't be too hard. Like you said, you know what you're doing, right?

Uncreative: Well I know what I'd like to do. The reappearance of the Apple of Eden should be an indicator of things to come, maybe. Take from it what you will. Still, what I want to do for part 3 is maybe throw in a few more connections to this story's sister story, and make everyone else do something! That's what I don't like about writing for Zero no Tsukaima is that there's a lot of characters to juggle. It's partly what's holding back the Legendary Familiars is that I have a cast of characters reaching the double digits from like 6 different franchises, each with their own established personality. It's hard writing a lot of characters. But this isn't "listen to the Uncreative Bastard bitch and moan about things he has far too much fun doing."

Joshua: Anything else?

Uncreative: I don't think so.

Joshua: Well, then I'm out.

Uncreative: Where are you going?

Joshua: You said it yourself, part 2's done and over with. Time to get another co-host for part 3. That's how this kind of thing works, isn't it?

Uncreative: Okay then. See you around.

Joshua: Bye.

Uncreative: Well, we're about done here. See you next time with part 3. I'd post a snippet of something from part 3, like what I did before part 2, but I'm still working out the finer details of part 3 myself. Well, I'm sure it'll all work out. See you all next time. This is The Uncreative, signing off.


	17. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16: Take a Rest**

... Well what the hell else did you expect us to do after taking down a freaking monarch, establishing one of our close friends as queen and ending a war, go start another one? I mean, I probably could if I wanted to. I'm good friends with TWO queens of entire nations! And their's only four nations, kingdoms, whatever they're called! I'm in good with half the freaking continent! I really shouldn't have these kinds of connections, it'll end up going to my head, I'm sure of it.

"And what's the worst you'd do with that power?" Emily asks me as we chilled out in the Tristain National Castle Waiting Room, waiting for our number to be called. "Establish pizzas as the national food stuff for Halkegnia?"

"Holy shit, I can do that?"

"Stop giving him ideas Emily," Louise tells out maid. "You'll flood his mind with far more bad ideas than it needs. He gets enough of those on his own."

"Guilty as charged," I admit. "So anyone have any idea why we're here?"

Me and Louise immediately look at Emily.

"... What, are you expecting me to know the answer? I don't know everything!"

Me and Louise just continue our look.

"... Anne didn't tell me," Emily says as she cross her arms over her chest and pouts. "She wanted it to be a surprise, so I'm just as much in the dark as you two. It's annoying."

"What, that you can't gloat over your superior knowledge?" Louise asks.

"Yeah. I've gotten so used to it from having done it so much in the past that it feels weird not getting to do it," Emily admits. "Wait, I'm not supposed to admit that I like bragging!"

"Shame on you for bragging and enjoying it," I tell her dryly. "Shame."

"I sure hope that was sarcasm, otherwise it would come across as almost hysterically hypocritical," Louise tells me.

"When have I ever bragged or reveled in the act?"

"Two weeks ago, with the tongue twisters?"

"No, that was another tongue twister, that wasn't bragging."

"Last month, when you beat Guiche when he asked for a rematch?"

"I was imitating what he would have done if he won!"

"About a month after I first summoned you, that poker game with Kirche?"

"... Okay, you got me there. Consider yourself lucky you were able to negotiate to only underwear, you both would have been screwed otherwise."

"I'm sorry, what?" Emily asks. "That one's new to me."

"What can I say, Louise sucks at poker," I say with a shrug. "Can't hold a poker face worth a damn."

"I can too! I've learned from Tabitha, I can hold a poker face twice as good as yours!" Louise claims.

"Doesn't help your luck, now does it?"

"... Right, I probably couldn't beat your luck. How did you even pull those hands off?" Louise asks.

"The cards love me," I say with a grin.

"At least if the fate of the world ever comes down to a game of poker, we know how to call," Louise offers dryly, seemingly ignorant of the fact that no, we don't know who to call. Ghostbusters don't work trans-worldly. I think they world trans-dimensionally, but not trans-worldly.

"We'll have to play once we get home, you two," Emily says. "I wanna try this. And no dicking around the bush with this negotiations crap, all in! Go big or go extinct!"

"What's that from?"

"My brain!"

I dunno, sounds familiar. That's from... I can't remember. Out of nowhere, a chill runs down my spine.

"What with you?" Emily asks.

"I Just got the feeling that somewhere a small, adorable red haired girl with a flaming nodachi is cursing me for not getting that reference. Yes, it is an oddly specific feeling, don't bring it up, I already have."

"Louise?"

"Yes, Emily?"

"Your boyfriend is really weird sometimes."

"He is kind of odd, isn't he?"

"I'm not odd, I'm insane! There's a rather big difference between the two," I correct.

...

"I sure hope you weren't waiting for one of us to defend you and say you aren't insane," Louise tells me.

"Even if you aren't, it's too good an opportunity to pass up," Emily tells me.

"I know, I would have done the same thing."

"You three! Her majesty is ready for you," what looks like a guard sees fit to inform us.

The three of us get up and head towards Henrietta's throne room, where we await the news with bated breath. When we stepped into the room we saw Henrietta sitting at a table waiting for us. When she spotted us, her face brightened up a bit.

"Yo! How's it going Anne?" Emily was the first to speak up, only to get elbowed in the ribs by Louise.

"Don't address the princess so casually! Ehem. We have appeared as summoned, your majesty," Louise says with a bow towards Henrietta.

"Louise, please stop with formalities," Henrietta tells her. "Friends don't need to be so formal with each other, do that?"

"R-right. I apologize your majesty."

We all give Louise our own version of The Glare Witch Project.

"... What?"

*Glare 2: Electric Boogaloo*

"Oh! I think I get it. Ahem. I apologize, Princess."

*Glare 2: The Quickening*

"Sorry Henrietta."

*Glare 2: Glare Harder*

"Um... My bad, Anne?"

We all drop our judging glares and Henrietta smiles. "It's all right Louise. Please, take a seat."

We all walk up to the table, grab our chairs and plant ourselves down for this current discussion.

"Firstly, I wish to thank all three of you," Henrietta says. "Thanks to all three of your efforts, King Joseph has been dethroned, a war has been ended, and a crusade hopefully avoided."

"Gee, when you say it like that it almost sounds like we're competent heroes or something," I remark as I lean back on my chair's back too legs.

"I honestly don't see how you could say you aren't," Henrietta counters. "You've done everyone a great service."

I got told the same thing at the end of my first day of my part time job at Dairy Queen, so excuse me if I don't sound enthused by that.

"As such, I feel like I owe all three of you a reward of some kind," Henrietta tells me. "Ah! Before you complain, Mr. Joshua, at least allow me to tell you what I had in mind. Or, maybe let me show you."

With that, Henrietta pulls an envelope out of her chest pocket and slides it across the table to me. I pick it up and look at it.

"Gee, you shouldn't have! How'd you know I like envelopes so much?"

"Josh, don't be rude! What's in the envelope?" Louise asks me.

I remove the seal on the envelope, open it up and pick out the paper. Eh? What's this? It looks almost like... And what's this say?

"HOLY ****ING SHIT!"

***THUNK***

"Ow," I mutter as I roll over, stand up and then pick up the chair that I accidentally just tipped over and fell out of.

"What was that all about?" Louise and Emily ask at the same time, as Henrietta tries her best to stifle her laughter.

"I didn't want a freaking CAPE, you expect me to want... how much was it? 10,000 square meters of land?!"

"WHAT?!" Louise exclaims.

"Oh yeah," Emily says as she pounds her fist in her hand. "Um... Ornières, was it? That old plot of land our west? I remember hearing that it had recently been refiled under a new name, but my contact didn't tell me who. That was you giving the land to Josh?"

"Yes," Henrietta says with a nod. "After everything you've done for us, do you really expect the reward attached to be of any less value?"

"Huh, I didn't think about that," I admit, a sarcastic tone creeping in. "Let's see, Emily, how much do you think jumping onto a ship, shooting the first mate and then being stabbed by the captain's poison blade is worth?"

"Um... One sec, lemme do the math here for a second," Emily says as she starts thinking. "A castle maybe? Perhaps two?"

"... You're really not helping."

"I was supposed too?" Emily seems genuinely surprised by that fact. Fine, I'll get myself out of this! I'm good at that!

"Louise."

"Yes, Josh?"

"How do I get myself out of this?"

There's a loud thunk as Louise and Emily's foreheads collide with the table. Henrietta, too royal for such behavior, instead honors the room with a royal facepalm.

"WHY would you want to get out of this?" Louise asks me as she gets up.

"Money's going to fall into your lap now! The annual income should be on that paper, what's it say?" Emily asks.

"Don't you know already?"

"I haven't checked in a while, start reading!"

"Um... 12,000 Ecu. Is that a lot?"

"TWELVE THOUSAND!"

Louise and Emily seems to be having fun today. So does Henrietta, if her laughter is any indication.

"You're just having a field day with this, aren't you?" I ask the queen.

"It is amusing, I'll admit. I didn't think they would react this enthusiastically," Henrietta says with a little snicker punctuating the sentence.

"God, I'm going to be dead by the time I'm 20 if this keeps up," Emily says. "Please don't give me heart attacks like that again, okay princess?"

"I'll try my best Emi," Henrietta says with a grin. "No promises."

"So, if I take this land, won't I have to worry about upkeep and stuff? You know, actually managing the land?" I ask. "I don't think I could do that. I couldn't even keep a tamagotchi alive for more then a day or so, I don't think I could run that much land."

"You can hire a manager, couldn't you?" Henrietta says. "I'm sure Emily knows a few, or perhaps Emi would like to be the manager herself?"

"I... I could probably mange it," Emily says. "If not, I do know a few people who probably could take care of it, shouldn't be that difficult."

"See? No problem. Any other questions?"

... "Nope. I guess I've got land now. Damn. I liked it better when things were simple."

"Quit your whining, we've got stuff now!" Emily says. "Now come on, the land's kind of a drive and I wanna check out the new digs before sundown!"

With that, Emily gets up, pick up both me and Louise by the collar and starts dragging us out.

"See ya Anne!" Emily yells back.

"Thanks for all the cool stuff!" I say with a wave.

"Um... Bye princess?" Louise offers, trying to keep as casual as possible to avoid our wrath.

"Goodbye you three," Henrietta says with a smile. "I wish you the best of luck."

And with that, our visit comes to a close. The door shuts behind us, we gain a bit more track down the hallway, and then Emily lets us go.

"Whew, what a rush," she says with a grin. "Now, Josh, still got that envelope? I need to borrow it."

"Um, sure. Why?" I ask as I give her the envelope sans deed to a bunch of land.

"Just wrote and invite to a friend. I was thinking of having a whole housewarming party, but I figured it'd be better to keep it small, so I'm only inviting her," Emily explains as she grabs a letter from her pocket, put it in the envelope and reseals it. "She'll be here in a few days or so, so we don't have to hurry or anything."

"When you write an invite?" I ask.

"When we were all talking. I needed to do something to pass the time. Don't worry, it's only one friend."

"Should we I be worried about your 'friend?'" Louise wonders aloud.

"Why would you be?"

"Forgive me for not having much experience with friends of famous information brokers," Louise says. "I'm really not sure what to expect."

"Ah, it's fine. I don't have as many friends as you think, considering I really only talk to them on a professional level to trade information," Emily assures Louise. "Let's see, Henrietta's a friend, and so's Sarina, I'm pretty sure, but they're both busy, so I can't really call on them. As such, it's only Josette coming by."

"Her name's Josette?" I ask.

"Yep. Nice girl. Shy girl. ... Huh. Forgot about that."

"Forgot about what?" Louise asks, seemingly cautious.

"She's super shy. Like, really shy. I've met her face to face once, and even then she spent half the time cowering behind a pillar," Emily explains. "She probably wouldn't even show up. ... I'm sure she's not as shy as she acts, she's probably just not used to being around people. I'm sure it'll be fine."

***Scene Break***

"Emily."

"Yes, Josh?"

"You're friend hasn't moved from behind the sofa for the past thirty minutes."

"D-don't mind me! Just a-act like I'm still there!"

"It'd be easier if you came out from there."

"It's fine Emily, I like it behind here!"

Fine, fine, I'll admit I jumped to that specific part because I love the way the last part segues into it. If you _really_ want I'll go back to when we actually arrived at our house:

***Rewind! Yay!***

We invited the usual suspects but no one was able to show. Tabitha was busy with Gallia and all that queenliness shit, Kirche was there helping out and providing moral support, Henrietta was also busy being all queenly, Tiffania was visiting some of he kids she used to take care of, Guiche was visiting his family, and Montmorency was out on some potions expedition. It was just me, Louise, Emily, and Emily's friend when she shows up. Ignoring that, holy shit this house is huge!

"And I own this," I say.

"Yep," Emily says with a nod.

"This... giant-ass house is mine now."

"Two stories isn't really that big, is it?" Emily asks. "Well, I guess it'd be bigger then your used to. Even then, wouldn't you be used to living in giant structures from the academy?"

"That's different. That's a magic academy, they're supposed to be like that. This... I'm going to be living here when we're done with the academy! Hmmm."

"What's with that?" Louise asks.

"... Thinking, gimme a moment."

If I wind up living here once Louise graduates from the academy and we no longer room there... isn't that basically me admitting that I'm never getting home and I'm stuck here forever? ... Whoa, I hadn't thought about actually getting home in a while. I mean, seriously thought about it. There was that time with the pope and the world door, but considering it was a choice between staying here or getting shot, I didn't really get to mull it over. Come to think of it, there's really nothing keeping me here at the moment. The war and crusade are completely dead, so I just need to go up to the pope and say "Hey, I wanna go home." ... Except that's not true at all. The Apple of Eden is still bothering me a bit. I need to see if I can get that flashback again. I only got bits and pieces from it, nothing really concrete. Really bad bits and pieces, but I could just be misinterpreting them due to a lack of context.

"Ow!"

My train of thought was broken by Emily flicking my forehead.

"What's with the super serious face?" She asks.

"What serious face?"

"The one you just had," Louise explains. "Is what you're thinking of really that serious?"

"Yeah, actually," I say.

Louise and Emily seem... scared? Shocked? Somewhere between the two.

"Oh god, you haven't killed someone, have you?" Emily asks.

"It was Julio, wasn't it? I shouldn't be surprised," Louise adds.

How is THAT the first thing your minds go to?!

"No I didn't kill Julio! ... To the best of my knowledge! It was just a few things that have been on my mind, nothing for you two to get troubled over."

Well, if I interpreted that Apple-Vision right, then we should be worried but that's besides the point. Proper context and citations needed. Either way, the two don't seem convinced.

"Sorry for jumping to conclusions," Emily says. "It's just that... well, considering you never take anything seriously, the fact that this apparently is serious is... well it's kind of scary."

"I take things seriously!"

Louise doesn't even respond with a sarcastic remark, she just gives me a look that says all she needs.

"Okay, maybe not, but still, it's nothing to get worked up over. Let's just go in there and check out the new place, okay?"

"Sure," Emily says. "Josette won't be here for a little bit anyway. I told her to just come in when she arrived, so we don't need to worry about waiting up for her."

"I forgot about her," Louise admits. "Where's she from anyway?"

"Gallia, or something like that. I don't look into my contact's pasts all that much, okay?" Emily says. "Like Sarina. When I asked her about it once she got all mopey and muttered something about 'nine years ago' and 'laying low to make sure they didn't find me.' It creeped me out, and from then on I decided against asking about people's backstories."

"... Right. I think we're done with that talk, if you don't mind," Louise says.

"Um... E-excuse me, Emily?"

Hey a new voice! We turn and see the owner of the newest pair of vocal chords. It was a girl (Obviously. I have yet to meet any man named Josette) who was maybe a little taller then Louise, and had longish brown hair. By longish, I mean a little bit past her shoulders. ... No ponytail, twintails or any fancy hairstyle. Disappointing, but we'll move on. Nothing worth noting about her manner of dress, just really casual clothing.

"Yo! Josette! You're here early!" Emily says as she runs up to the girl and gives her a friendly hug. "Josh, Louise, meet Josette!"

"H-hello," the girl manages to get out. "The trip didn't take as long as I expected, so I decided to come over. It's nice to meet you two."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Louise says as nicely as possible.

"Hi," I offer. "Um... You wanna stop hiding behind Emily at some point?"

"No," is her very quick answer. "O-oh. Um... S-sorry. I'm not good with people."

"Understandable, Josh here is absolutely terrifying," Louise says, all the while giving me a smile just dripping with snark and smarmyness.

"Not helping," Emily says. "Come on Josette, let's go look around the house, just you and me, and get you aquatinted with everything. Then we can hang out with Josh and Louise, okay?"

I see the smallest hint of a nod from behind Emily, as Josette then holds tightly onto her arm and they head into the house.

"We'll catch up with you two later, okay?" Emily says over her should before disappearing into the house.

"So now we check out the house?" I ask.

"Now we check out the house," Louise confirms.

And with that, we enter our new house/mansion and start looking around, getting a lay of the lands. Figuring out the number of bedrooms (a lot), bathrooms (a lot) and how to get from the bedrooms to the kitchen in case of food emergencies. You know, stuff like being really hungry and wanting to make myself a sandwich. I'd describe this stuff in more detail, but I don't think anyone really cares about the layout. It's not like we'll even be staying here that often. It makes a nice safe house and all, a good HQ, but we still need to stay at the academy since, you know, Louise still goes there. Still a nice place, and I apparently make a lot of money off it. Now all I need to do is make enough money to buy out all of Tristain and then begin my world conquest. Start by buying out all the stores to get my hourly income up to ridiculous levels and get huge discounts on everything. Then once I own everything, we begin. Yes, I'm okay with this.

Disregarding my aspirations of world takeover, we should find Emily and Josette. Now, where would they be?

"The living room maybe?" Louise offers. "Seems as good a place as any."

"Right, okay, that was on the first floor, right?"

With that we began our grand journey to the living room, where we found Emily and Josette sitting behind the couch, looking down at Emily's lap. Probably because there was an iPad there. Don't know what they were watching, but whatever it was, Josette just gasped.

"I-it just bit off her head!" Josette seems pretty panicky. "M-Mami can heal though, right?"

"Nope, dead as a doornail," Emily assures her. "Because reasons. You're not seeing her again."

"How do you keep that thing charged, anyway?" I wonder. "It can't be easy."

"Nah, it's solar powered," Emily assures me as she takes notice of our presence and hops up on the couch. "Knew a guy back in Toronto who was really good at that modification stuff, and he's a good friend so he set it up for me. Good thing the sun's not that different over here."

"So, you're from Earth?" I ask.

"... Yeah, didn't I ever mention that?" Emily asks. "A little after you found out I was the biggest information broker in Halkegnia?"

"No. No you didn't."

"Oh. Well, sorry about that. Never really meant it to be a secret," Emily says. "It's just not really something that comes up in conversation naturally. Really sorry about that."

"That's fine. How'd you wind up here anyway?"

Emily shrugs. "Mom always did tell me not to mess around in subspace."

"Subspace? You mean like Super Mario 2?"

Beat.

"No. It's not like that at all."

"Oh."

"Ah, that's then and this is now, we're all here, let's have a housewarming," Emily says.

"I d-don't do good with people I'm not familiar with," Josette reminds us. "I don't know if I'd be very much help with that."

"I can respect that," I tell her. "I feel the same way at times."

"Ah, you'll warm up to it all," Emily says, as she starts cutting a deck of cards.

"What's with the cards?" I ask.

"I told you we were going to play back at Anne's! Josette, would you mind dropping by for a round?"

"I'm no good at cards," Josette tries, only for Emily to give her some cards anyway.

"Alright, joker's wild, highest hand wins, play till we can't play anymore," Emily says as she starts dealing cards to the rest of us.

"I don't feel very good about this," Louise says.

"Glad I'm not alone on that," Josette says.

***Scene Break***

"You're cheating," Emily accuses me.

"Not to my knowledge, no I'm not."

"Bullshit. Royal flush four times in a row? One of each suite?"

"The cards love me," I say with a smug smile. "It's one of the only times I can consider myself lucky."

My EX rank luck isn't for show, you know, as Louise and Josette could attest. Louise got knocked out first, followed by Josette, so they were just kind of off to the side, being all nervous and embarrassed. Emily wasn't too far behind, and I was nowhere near getting knocked out. Luck of the draw.

"Just end it quickly, please," Louise says as quietly as possible to not draw attention to herself.

"Alright then, Mr. Cheater," Emily says. "How about we go all or nothing. All down to whoever has the better hand right here. But if you win with another royal flush, I win, deal?"

"Don't see why not, though I can't guarantee anything with my luck, but we'll see," I say, looking at my hand.

"Fine. Three kings," Emily says, laying down her hand.

"... Ah, to hell with it. Five aces."

"Bullshit," Emily says.

"Yep, completely," I say as I lay my hand on the table, showing four aces and a joker. "Still counts, technically."

"... Lucky bastard," Emily says as she starts undoing her bra.

"Rank EX isn't just for show," I boast.

"So, game over, right?" Louise asks.

"I can get dressed now, right?" Josette asks.

"I'm not gonna stop you," as I get up to head out of the room to give them some privacy.

I wait a few minutes then pop back in to find everyone fully dressed, with Josette hiding behind the couch again while Louise and Emily sit on it.

"What's with the bottle?" I ask Emily.

"Housewarming present from a nearby contact," she says as she takes a swig. "I don't think any of you would mind if I keep it to myself."

"No, please. Keep it," Louise says. "I think I've embarrassed myself enough today."

"Ah, whatever," Emily says, taking another swig. "To the new house, and to hanging out here more! Cheers everyone!"

"Cheers," we all repeat.

***Author Notes***

Uncreative: ...

?: Nothing?

Uncreative: I don't have anything to say really. Pretty low key way to start part 3. Whatever. Hasn't been that long, for once, but intros anyway out of tradition. Hey everyone I'm The Uncreative.

Jocelyn: Jocelyn. Ex-assassin and main POV for Empty Boundaries, another story by this guy. Nice to see you all.

Uncreative: Okay, let's start from the top. Last chapter Josh picked up an Apple of Eden. Obviously that'll be important later, but this chapter wasn't really the point for it. I'm still happy I was at least able to mention it and not just ignore that it happened.

Jocelyn: That's for next chapter, right? For when we actually get started on the plot and get past the slow start.

Uncreative: That's the plan. Next, we've got Henrietta giving land and new mansion/house to Josh and his little group.

Jocelyn: Hey, you can never doubt the usefulness of a safe house. Everyone should have one. That and owning enough land to make money is good. It means you always have a safe zone to hide out in. Just in case.

Uncreative: What do you mean, just in case?

Jocelyn: Never know when you pissed off someone to the point of wanting to kill you. Take my word on that one, I've have a loooooot of experience with it.

Uncreative: Right. After that we actually get to the house and meet Josette. Just a note, if you've read the original light novels then you might be familiar with another character named Josette. ... Yeah, that was kind of supposed to be her.

Jocelyn: She seems nice.

Uncreative: And probably nothing like who she was in the light novels. When I planned, using that word VERY loosely, this story, Josette was always going to be a part of it, but back then we didn't have anything past volume 12 or 13 fully translated, but we still got some plot detail. As such, I kind of took a shot in the dark regarding Josette and I was probably completely wrong, I haven't read past volume 15 yet so hell if I know. Ah well, I'm used to be wrong on things like this. It's a thing you get used to.

Jocelyn: Can't disagree with that. I'm pretty used to being wrong as well. Still sucks, but what can you do?

Uncreative: Well-

Jocelyn: No, you can't just kill whatever makes you wrong until you're right. Doesn't work like that in most cases. Can't kill every mathematician in the world just because you screwed up on algebra.

Uncreative: No, but we all wish we could. Whatever. I can't think of much else, see you all next time.

Jocelyn: Bye everybody. Read my story, it's better!

Uncreative: No advertising.

Jocelyn: Damn it!


	18. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17: *Insert Time Travel Joke of Choice Here***

Luckily my BRAND NEW MANSION (that I will brag about to everyone I can the second I get back home) had a few bedrooms, so we didn't have to worry about where anyone would sleep. Turns out Josette's afraid of the dark, so she's rooming with Emi so she can actually get some sleep and not devolve into a nervous wreck. More so then usual. And, as is the obvious, Louise slept in the bed in her room and I stayed out in the living room because I had business and didn't need to sleep. ... No, wait, that's not the usual.

So, now that everyone is asleep and no once has a chance to sneak up on me and ask what the hell I'm doing under the cover of darkness while everyone is asleep and there can be no witnesses, time to get to work. I pull up a chair, sit at the living room table and mentally prepare myself. I pull the Apple of Eden out of my pocket and place it on the table in front of me.

...

How do I use this thing again? I just picked it up last time and got all that junk data, but the time before that I got nothing. Maybe there's an easier way? Hold it a certain way so it gets better reception? God, even in other worlds cell reception's a bitch.

I pick up the Apple and look at it. What the hell is this thing anyway? It looks nothing like an apple! And besides, apples don't glow like this! ... Wait. Should this be glowing? I'd put the magical glowing hunk of metal down, but my survival instinct stat isn't high enough. Instead, I'm compelled to keep looking at it. ... Look at it. Gaze into its... appleyness.

...

Naaaah. I drop the apple on the table with a thunk, get up and grab a drink of water from the kitchen. When the apples start glowing, that's when I'm about ready to call it a day. I mean, seriously. That's weird. I've seen a lot of really odd shit since I've been here, but magical glowing robo apples? A line's gotta be drawn somewhere, or things will just keep getting weirder and weirder. So this is where I draw the line. A line I am perfectly happy with skipping right over. Lines are made to be jumped, after all.

That unnecessarily complicated thought process out of the way, and my thirst successfully quenched, I pick up the Apple and try this thing again. The Apple starts glowing again, and I roll my eyes and try to will this damn thing to be less dramatic. Eventually the light dies down, and I'm left wondering if this is really going to be this anticlimactic. Of course that was before I looked at my surroundings. I was in that white loading screen room again. I hate loading.

I take a look around the loading screen and notice a few odd sections. It almost looks like floating glass shards, but I can see events inside them. Damn, it's a level select as well?

"You are not Sasha."

"Indeed I am not," I say turning to the new challenger. She looks rather hologramy. Damn it, I suck at identifying holograms. This is why I never liked them. Everyone's always like "Oh! Cool! Holograms!" But I could never make out the details of anyone in the hologram. They all look exactly the same to me. Do you know how embarrassing it is to confuse Leia and Palpatine, just because you can't identify holograms? Mortifying. Absolutely mortifying. That aside, I think I might have already figured something out.

"You're some kind of AI programmed into the Apple, aren't you? Made to serve as a guide to whoever unlocks the hunk of metals abilities?"

The holographic woman nods her head. "In your terms, yes. My memories and consciousness have been inserted into the Piece of Eden as a way of guiding those who would find it. I am Minerva."

"Joshua Springfield," I introduce myself. "So, Minerva. I don't mean to say anything presumptuous like 'Start guiding me!' or anything like that, but I'm new to this. I've only held the apple twice before, and only once did I get anything out of it. What is this? Why are events from the past inside it? Are you going to answer these all at once, or every few visits?"

Wait, I can already predict it.

""The answers will come to you in time.""

Minerva seems surprised that I managed to say that with her in perfect sync.

"Sorry, I kind of expected that kind of answer," I say. "It's kind of a common thing in my world. Sorry."

"Do not be. It is the only answer I can give you for now," Minerva tells me.

"Fine. Before I go memory exploring, mind if I ask one thing? Any particular reason the apple only seemed to glow when I grabbed it? I mean, everyone in our little group held it at least once when we found it on that treasure hunt a few months ago, so why's it only glow when I hold it?"

Well, to be fair, I don't think Louise or Tabitha got a hold of it, but still. Why's it glow when I hold it?

"You are of our bloodline," Minerva tells me. "Inside you is the blood of Those Who Came Before."

...

"And that means?" I prompt for information on something I've never heard of.

"Exactly what I said. The bloodline of The First Civilization continues through you," Minerva tells me.

"Uh... huh. Right. Well, maybe Sasha can tell me more, I like hanging out with her. She answers questions directly. Oh yeah, I lied. One more question. Did you know Sasha? You mentioned her earlier."

"Yes. She was the last person to use this artifact of our civilization," Minerva says. "I hope you can live up to her legacy."

I dunno about all this. I feel like she's not telling me everything she should. I feel like she should be talking and expositing far more then she currently is. It's an odd feeling. Maybe you need to unlock that stuff. Damn video game progression systems. I want my story now! Screw it. Which memory shard should I hit first? I guess left to right? That's how menus work, right?

I guess it doesn't matter, since it's all new stuff and info anyway. I still like a proper chronology. Okay! From the top! I touch the leftmost memory shard, and everything goes white.

***Scene Break***

"You returned quickly," Minerva notes.

"Already did that save file," I say. "I hate replaying segments I've already done before I've beaten the game."

"Excuse me?"

"Nothing. Let me try this again."

***Scene Break***

Much better.

"Josh?" Sasha asks off to my right. "You know what that is?"

I look at what I'm holding in my hand. Yep. That's an Apple of Eden. Glad I got dropped off here. I was worried that I'd be dropped off some time after the last memory sequence and that I'd lose out on a lot of stuff. Glad to see that's not the case. Less awkward moments.

"A little," I tell her, rolling the ball from hand to hand, inspecting it from all angles. "I've heard of it, but I'm not intimately familiar with it. I've got a lot to learn about it and where it came from. Know anything about it yourselves?"

They both shake their heads. "Only unconfirmed legends," Brimir explains. "And even then the legends are vague at best. They say it holds a great power, but the never specified what. I mean, great charisma and ability to get people to listen to what you say isn't really a power, is it?"

"I guess," I say, still examining the Apple of Eden. "Should we really be putting our faith in something we have no idea how to use or what it does?"

"It's our only chance," Sasha says. "The Valiag leader has been in power for too long, and too many people have lost their lives. We need an advantage."

"Here's my question, and this is all hypothetical. What if _this_ is his advantage?" I throw out there.

"Excuse me?" Sasha asks.

"You mentioned that the leader is using some kind of unknown power to control people's minds. What I've heard of this Apple of Eden has described it as one of the artifacts of a past civilization." _At least I think that's what Minerva was implying. I was only kind of half paying attention by that point._ "Key words are 'one of.' What if the Valiag leader has one of these himself, and that's what lets him control people's minds?"

"What are you suggesting?" Brimir asks.

"Before we can try anything, we need to figure out how to use this, and if we can use it to dispel it's own effects, otherwise we're screwed anyway. Now, ignoring that I just said that we need to do what we were going to do anyway, if we assume that the bad guy is using a Piece of Eden himself, then we know what this does."

"You think we can use this to control people's minds?" Sasha asks.

"I kind of don't want to find out. Considering how much I've spoken out against the idea, I'd feel rather hypocritical, don't you think?"

"But if it can help us remove him from power, shouldn't we make use it?" Brimir asks.

"I don't know. I'm rather fond of my moral compass. Brainwashing goes against that," I say.

"Care to try and find a loophole in your morals?" Sasha asks.

"Hmm. I dunno, maybe if you were a bit nicer?" I ask. "Maybe try and persuade me by asking cutely?"

Sasha blushes. "W-what do you mean by cuter?"

"Maybe something like, 'Would you help your bestest friends in the world, Mr. Joshua? Pretty please?' Though you can feel free to improv."

"A-Absolutely not!" Sasha face is a hilarious shade of red. "Elves are a proud and dignified race! I refuse to lower myself to something like that!"

Wait, I just remembered. I had half a pizza in the oven back home before I got summoned to this world. SHIT, that's going to burn.

"Please Sasha!" Brimir begs. "We need this! We need the advantage this could offer us!"

It shouldn't have burned the house down or anything, but that's still really worrying. I mean, that pizza was freaking good! I was sooooo looking forward to eating it again, now it's probably all burnt to a crisp and rotting in a dump somewhere. Awwww, that sucks! It deserved far more!

"Mmmmmm," Sasha... growls? Murmers angrilly? Some combination of the two. Sasha looks at me, face still tomato. "W-w-would you help you bestest friends in the world, Mr. Joshua? P-pretty please?"

I blink in surprise, frozen at a number of factors, (mostly shock and horror) then toss the apple to Brimir.

"Guys, I was messing with you. I didn't expect you to actually do it," I tell her.

Shit, Sasha's pissed. Speech check failed.

"Y-YOU BARBARIAN!" She roars at me. "WHY DIDN'T YOU SAY ANYTHING EARLIER!"

"I wasn't paying attention! I had another, arguably more important thought on my mind," I try and defend with.

"What might that be?! More ways to get me to embarrass myself beyond all belief?!"

Shit, Sasha's pissed. I kind of wanna duck out of this memory and come back at a later time, when she's not as pissed, but that's exploitation of the system. That's how you get banned. FOUNDER SAVE ME.

"I think I've got it!"

PRAISE BE OUR LORD AND SAVIOR MADOKA. Wait, no. That was wrong.

"What'cha got Brimir?" I ask, turning to the future Jesus figure.

Speaking of the man, WHAT THE ACTUAL ****! How the hell did you get the ball glowing?

"Brimir, what are you doing?" Sasha asks. "Why is it glowing like that?"

"I've unlocked it!" Brimir says enthusiastically. "I've figured out how it works! Sasha, Joshua! This... This is incredible! All the knowledge stored in this! This is it! This is how we defeat them!"

"You sure about that one?" I ask. I mean, I certainly didn't get any knowledge out of that. Just junk data like Emily and Louise's 3 sizes and a few assorted out of context flashback scenes. Still trying to figure out how the damn thing knew about the former.

"I'm certain of it!" Brimir says excitedly. "This is it! How we win!"

"Awesome. Now. How do we get there?" I ask.

"... Huh?" Suddenly Brimir deflates.

"The magic robo-apple's nice and all, but where is the leader of that particular army anyway?" I ask.

"We... don't really know," Brimir admits.

"And it was such a good plan up until that moment," I muse.

**"FAST FORWARDING TO RELEVANT MEMORY"**

Wait, what? No! Bad apple! No fast forwards! Damn it, where's the remote control? This interface is stupid! Where's the pause? Wait, dammit, now I'm not even in the save file, I'm just watching like a camera. This is stupid. Fine. I have a fast forward, let's get the relevant info. Uhhh, this maybe?

"We may have-"

Fast forward. A little bit more. Brimir working on figuring out how to use the Apple. Boring. More. More. Waitstopgoback! Rewindrewindrewind! That was a thing! Oh damn everything! This something to do with the whole "6000" years old thing? The memory's all corrupted! I can kind of make out Brimir with the Apple in one hand, and Sasha holding a sword off to his right. And the other person there facing them down. Is that supposed to be the volleyball leader? I can't tell because I CAN'T SEE A DAMNED THING. There's all this static everywhere, I half expect an error message to pop up. Well, I think my guess about Mr. Volleyball having a Piece of Eden was right. He does seem to be holding a shiny stick. The Apple's glowing in tandem with the stick. Must be some sort of resonance. Wait. Where have I seen a glowey stick before? I step into the frozen memory, and make my way towards the stick through all the static to the stick held by another blob of static.

... Homicidal maniacs get pope sticks? I mean, I don't know the guy, he could be perfectly well rounded and well mannered individual. I mean, apparently brainwashing an army to start going around slaughtering innocents kind of dashes that theory. Hmmm.

I end the memory and return to the white room.

"Yes, I'm back for real this time," I tell Minerva, as she waits for me back there. "I have a question I'm sure you can answer. What happened to that pope stick?"

"The Staff of Eden?" Minerva asks.

"Unsurprising," I mutter. I guess that's the direction we're going with this arc. Pieces of Eden for everyone. "The memory segment was corrupted or something. The second half devolved into nothing but static, and I could barely make out Sasha and not-Jesus fighting off that one guy I never got a chance to meet. He had the pope stick on him. Obviously I can't get the rest of that, so mind filling me in on the details? Or are those in the next segment and I'm just an impatient asshole?"

"All the answers you seek are in the memory segments," Minerva tells me. "Though if you are curious, there is another way to get that information. And yes, I am going to tell you what that method is."

"YES!" I say with a fist pump. "Sorry. Got a little excited there. Please continue."

"You can ask your friend Emily about it. An information broker like her should easily be able to gather information on a staff passed down the papal lineage since Brimir himself."

"... Wait. Oh. OHHHHH, I get it," I say. "What you're saying, I mean. I think I get it. I get it."

"Do you now?"

"No. I'm sure I'll understand when I talk to Eminem about it. Emi, whatever she likes being called. See you then. Next time we talk I hope you'll be more forthcoming with information. See ya round Minney."

"My name is Minerva."

Got it Minney. With that, I exit the white room, and I'm back, sitting at the table, the Apple of Eden in my hand again. ... It's morning. How long was I in that freaking flashback?

"Hmm? Josh, what are you doing up so early?" Emily asks, as she walks into the room.

"Taking care of something," I explain. It takes a weirdly high amount of willpower to not take in the sight. Considering she, I and Louise have slept in the same bed for the past few months, you'd think I'd be used to Emily in her underwear. Nope. Still hot, and still distracting.

"And what might that be?" Emily asks as she grabs some water.

"Emily, what do you know about the Papal Staff?" I ask, still starting at Apple.

"The pope's staff?" Emily asks. "Why do you want to know about that?"

"Come here for a sec," I say as I beckon her over.

"Hmmm? Isn't that the apple thing we found on the treasure hunt?" Emily asks as she leans over and looks at the metal ball.

"Okay, not quite what I had in mind. Your cleavage is making it very difficult to concentrate," I tell her.

Emily pouts, then grabs the Apple of Eden and stands up straight. I hear her mumble something along the lines of "at least I have cleavage," before she returns to examine the Apple.

"Lemme guess. You think this and the pope stick are connected," Emily says.

"Yep. What do you know about the stick?" I ask.

"Not much. Off the top of my head, it was once wielded by Brimir himself. It was found buried with him, whereupon it was declared a holy object, and passed from pope to pope from then on as a symbol of their papal nature."

"Hmmm."

"What's up master?" Emily asks.

"Think you can call in a few favors and score us a trip to Romalia and a meeting with the pope? I think we have a few things to discuss with him."

***Author notes***

Uncreative: Short chapter.

Jocelyn: Yep. Got anything to say? Quite a bit did happen, despite the length. Think we should change up and label it for what it is? An actual Assassin's Creed crossover?

Uncreative: Nah, too much work to do all that. Actually it's probably not, but whatever. Plus I think it works. I mean, the Pieces of Eden being a plot point and Minerva showing up are pretty good surprises, right? Mostly I'm making excuses for why I'm going to keep it like this, but whatever.

Jocelyn: Hooray excuses!

Uncreative: Okay. I feel it should be stated that this entire third act was not part of the plan. When I started this story I always planned to hit up to volume 15, with the end of the Joseph arc, and I did want to do a third arc. What that third arc was, changed quite a bit from what we're getting.

Jocelyn: So what was it initially?

Uncreative: I'd rather not talk about it.

Jocelyn: What's with that attitude?

Uncreative: I _really_ hate the original idea for this third arc. Like, genuinely despise. It was such an astronomically stupid idea, came out of absolute nowhere, made no sense, was a complete 180, served no real purpose-

Jocelyn: I think I get it. So how'd you come up with this one?

Uncreative: It makes more sense, doesn't it? I mean, Assassin's Creed jokes have been in here since more or less the beginning, and this seems like the most logical extension, doesn't it? At least I liked the idea. Also, I don't think I need to say that there's going to be at least one more flashback chapter with Sasha and Brimir.

Jocelyn: I'm disappointed they didn't do more this chapter. I wanted more Sasha! She's cool!

Uncreative: Yeah. I didn't get to do as much with this chapter as I wanted. I wanted to do more, but I didn't know what else to do. I really just had no idea what else to do with that section, especially considering I'm and uncreative bastard and couldn't think of anything interesting to do with the Valiag thing.

Jocelyn: I still don't know anything about them, so I don't care. Next chapter we head to Romalia again, right?

Uncreative: A pseudo-Assassin's Creed story heading to pseudo Rome. Seems right, doesn't it? We're done here.

Jocelyn: Sounds fine to me. See you all next time.


	19. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18: Back to Rome**

"And then I stabbed everyone at the bar, lit it on fire with a molotov and walked out of the building backlit by the flames of my awesome," I tell Emily, who responds with a low whistle.

"I've been playing it all wrong. I just breeze through the story. I thought the social commentary was supposed to be the main draw there."

"There was social commentary?"

"Yeah. I mean, wasn't it obvious?" Emily asks.

"I just kill the zombies in funny ways," I tell her.

"What are you two babbling about?" Louise asks. "Some other nonsense from your world?"

"I don't think it's nonsense," Josette says, hiding behind me. "It's kind of interesting. I like hearing about new things."

"See? Josette knows whats up!" Emily says with a grin.

"Not to sound rude, but why is she here anyway?" Louise asks. "And why are we waiting for a ship to Romalia? Assuming whatever business you have is as important as you say it is, why couldn't we just ask the Princess for a ship?"

"Number one: Because why not?" I open with. "She was already with us, and a little company is always nice, right? Letter B: We're in line to go to and have a little chat with our old friends. Thirdly: Yes it is that important, and Henrietta's busy. I don't want to bother her when she's doing things that _might_ be a little more important."

"So it's important, but not important enough to bother the princess," Louise affirms. "That being the case, how important is it?"

"It all depends on how good our conversation goes," I tell her. "If it goes well, then it will all blow over and we'll have this all done in two, three chapters tops. Maybe an epilogue."

"Chapters?" Josette asks.

"You're still on that?" Louise asks. "You're not going to be the star of a trilogy of works. You will receive neither books, nor plays, nor anything else. I'm sorry you had to hear about it like this."

"Way to kill my dreams," I say despondently. "Well. Assuming things go less then savory, we looking... a lot longer. Depends on a lot of things."

"Things like..." Emily motions for me to continue.

"A lot of things that are impossible to predict. We'll see. Really the biggest defining factor is how well our chat goes. Lets hope for the best. But just in case, I have a few back up plans prepared."

"Oooh! Exciting!" Emily says. "I like how that sounds. Can I start hoping that it all fails so we can go to the backups?"

"No. There will be no hoping for failure," Louise tells her. "We will hope that this is solved as quickly and efficiently as possible."

"Yeah, I'd like heading home myself, but we do have to deal with this first," I add.

"Home as in, home here, or home as in your home world?" Josette asks.

"The latter if all goes according to plan," I reply.

"Excuse me?" Emily asks.

"The plan's still in the formative stages, but if it goes according to plan, then we wrap up all the loose ends here and I go back home to Earth. Again, still in the early stages."

"How early?" Emily asks.

"I've got a beginning step, a middle step, and an ending step, with no idea how to move from one step to another. Much like my life."

"... Good job?" Emily doesn't seem too sure what to make of that.

"I like to think so. It's better then my usual plan which is to make shit up as I go."

"Swear."

"... Excuse me?" I ask Josette.

"You used a swear," she points out, still hiding behind me. "It's not a very nice word."

"... Right. I'll try to work on that."

"I'm sorry, I need to be walked through this a bit more," Emily says. "I thought we were just going to talk with the Pope about his pope stick?"

"W-wait, what?" Louise says. "We're going to talk to the Pope? Why?"

"Just have a bit of a chat about his pope stick," I tell her. "It could be important. If not, then we all get to go home and everyone's happy. Hurray."

"And how do you suppose we meet with him?" Louise asks.

"That's my field," Emily says. "It shouldn't be too hard. A few very influential people owe me some big favors, so I can call those in. Getting a meeting with the pope is one of the least difficult things I've arranged."

"What was the most difficult, may I ask?" I offer.

"Meeting me," Josette says.

"She's really shy," Emily says with a nod. "You have no idea just how many strings I had to pull and favors to call just to finally meet her face to face. She kept coming up with reasons and excuses to not show up. Come to think of it, how did that go anyway? I just remember goats."

"Many, many goats," Josette says with a shudder. "So many."

"... I'll refrain from asking," I reply.

"Please do," Josette says. "I don't like talking about it."

"THAT was it!" Emily says, pounding her fist into her palm. "I remember now. Josette, you still have that sexy underwear? That could prove an invaluable asset in the coming discussion."

Wow. I think Josette just managed to shrink herself out of existence through sheer force of embarrassment.

"I'll refrain from asking," I reply once again.

"Thank you," a quiet voice from nowhere tells me.

"Whatever," Emily says. "I'm just disappointed that we couldn't tell the story to kill time. Hours would have gone by *clap* just like that."

"And we'll still be here, waiting for a ship," Louise replies dryly.

"It's not that bad," I try to defend. "And waiting is fun!"

"Our ship is still hours away from going anywhere," Louise points out. "Does that qualify as not that bad?"

"Yep," I say with a nod. "I like waiting. It's fun. The anticipation is enough to kill you."

"Uh-huh," Louise says, not buying it. "Admittedly you seem the type to genuinely enjoy something like that."

"Indeed I am!"

"As long as something is keeping my interest, I'm fine with waiting," Emily says. "What about you Josette?"

"I don't like waiting," she replies. "The anticipation makes me too nervous."

Not that she needs any help with that.

***Scene Break***

After several, several hours, we finally got our ship to Romalia. Seriously, it took for freaking ever. By the time we got on the ship, Josette and Emily went straight to bed. It was like freaking midnight I think, so that's not surprising. It was a passenger ship so we got our own rooms. No points for guessing which pairs went to which rooms. The room came with a privacy screen, which Louise was using to get changed into her nightdress/pajamas/single-piece-of-silk-that's-far -too-see-through-for-it's-own-good-and-you-can-see -everything. And yes, that was all a single word. I'd ask why she's using the screen at all considering the aforementioned see-throughability as well as the fact that I wouldn't be seeing anything new, but considering I'd probably use the thing as well I can't complain.

"I'm using the screen because I'm trying to at least pretend I still have a semblance of modesty left," Louise answers.

"What the hell?! Can everyone just read my mind?" I ask as I lie down on the bed. … Damn this thing's comfy.

"It's obvious that's what you were wondering," Louise responds. "I can't read your mind, but I know you well enough to know that that's what would be on your mind."

"Would you also recognize my extreme disappointment at the screen?" I ask.

"Would you recognize that I don't care about things like that?"

"Ouch. Sharp tongue."

"A rather unfortunate consequence of being in your company for as long as I have."

"I love you too sweetheart."

"…"

"Did I say something bad?"

"Hey, Josh," Louise asks as she steps out form behind the screen. "Can I ask you something?"

"Oh shit, it's the 'hey we've got to have a serious talk' tone of voice. Did I screw up? I screwed something up, didn't I?"

"For once, no," Louise says as she plops down on the bed next to me. We both lie on our backs and look up at the ceiling for a bit in silence. Eventually Louise sighs. "Do you really want to go back to your world?"

"Yep."

"… Not one for tact, are you?" she asks.

"Don't much see the point, especially in a situation like this. I mean, isn't it natural to want to go back to my world? I have friends and family that are probably worrying about me. Or not. I don't know what they're doing with their lives."

"So… you're okay with abandoning us? Just leaving us?" Louise asks.

"Nope. Hate the idea. I really don't want to leave you guys behind. I would miss you all far too much. You wouldn't know it, but I have been thinking about this for a while. I've just been thinking about it passively as opposed to actively thinking about it, but it's a debate that I've been working on for a while."

"… What would you do if I asked you not to leave?" Louise asks. "I want an answer, not like last time when I dropped the question."

"Planned on leaving. I damn near making a living off of not listening to people I should listen to. Though for what it's worth I was going to extend an invitation to you and Emily."

"Wh-what?" Louise sits up and looks at me, doing a shit job of hiding her surprise. This is why you can't win at poker.

"Well, yeah," I say as I sit up to face her. "I imagine Emily wouldn't mind going back to Earth, and I'd be a pretty shit boyfriend if I just abandoned you with literally no chance of ever seeing you again. That and I would miss you a lot. Like, a lot. Not quite to the extent of getting my memories wiped out, but I would miss you a lot."

"Th-that was a one time thing!" Louise exclaims. "It was a spur of the moment awful idea that I don't plan on repeating! It really was a stupid idea in hindsight."

"Most decisions are. But don't worry. Even if things go perfectly, it might be a while before I get home so that gives you time to think about whether or not you feel like joining me on some weird alien planet."

"I'll put some thought into it," Louise tells me.

"Kickass. Night Louise," I say, ending my sentence by giving Louise a quick kiss. No idea what her reaction is as I lie down and head to sleep.

"G-good night Josh," Louise says doing what I can only assume is lying down as well.

Right. Now. How do I accomplish this plan? I know what I'm doing, to an extent, just gotta deal with the pope and have him use his world door, I go home with Louise and Emily should they decide to follow. The problem is getting that far. I start going through my mental checklist of things to do once we hit Romalia. We need a safe house first and foremost should things go south and we need a place to cool down. Second I need to make a quick pitstop at that weapons vault that Julio showed me that one time to pick up some supplies for my backup, then we can chat with the pope. Then it goes to shit and that's the beginning of a much larger campaign. Hate to be pessimistic on the outcome of this chat, but stuff like that always happens. Welp. I'll deal with it in the morning.

***Scene Break* **

"Alright, we're finally here!" I shout, stepping off the ship and onto land. "Okay, now we begin the operation."

"What are you talking about?" Louise asks me. "Do you have some grand scheme in mind?"

"Yep. Step one: Emily, we need a place where we can hang out anonymously should we need to lie low. Think you can squeeze that into your itinerary?"

Emily thinks it over. "So, score a personal meeting with the pope and find a safe house where nobody would think to look for us? Should be easy. I think."

"Awesome," I tell her. "Louise, Josette, I would very much appreciate it if you two went shopping."

"… Excuse me?" Louise seems confused.

"We might be here a while, so we'll need things to make our stay comfortable. You know, some additional spare clothes to blend in, groceries, things like that. Is that okay with you?"

"I know a few stores that can help," Josette tells me. "They're pretty cheap too."

"Nice bonus. You okay with it Louise?"

"I'm not sure how I feel about it," Louise tells me. "You sound like you're expecting things to go very badly."

"Hope for the best but expect the worse. If things go as shit as I think then it'll be significantly harder to get this stuff afterwards. Best to get it now and find out we don't need it then be unable to get it at all."

"You are really taking this seriously, aren't you?" Emily asks me.

"Yeah, I'm not messing around. This could _really_ screw us over if it goes badly."

"You're making it sound worse the more you talk about it," Louise points out. "Please stop."

"Um…" Josette hesitates. "Does 'screw' in that context count as a swear?"

"…"

Me, Louise and Emily exchange glances before giving a collective shrug.

"I'll put a quarter in the swear jar later," I settle on. "Alright, we about ready everyone?"

"Not telling us what you'll be doing while we get our jobs done?" Emily asks.

"Just making a quick pit stop for some supplies. Shouldn't be that hard. Might be gone for a while though, so let's all meet up back here with everything at… 8 sound good for everyone?"

"Eh… Can we make it 9?" Emily asks. "Just to be on the safe side. Haven't looked through my stuff on this place for a while."

"That work for you two?" I ask Louise and Josette who nod in agreement. "9 it is. Let's get rolling everybody."

***Scene Break***

Holy shitballs, the security here sucks. I don't want to sound arrogant when I say I'm confident in my stealth skills, but who cares when they have like, no guards around! You'd think that if they have a vault just filled with weird, otherworldly weaponry that's been proven to be freaking potent that they would guard it a bit better! I walked right in! That's just embarrassing. What if a thief was walking about? They would just waltz right into the vault and steal anything they wanted and then everyone would be screwed. Does that sound fun? Yes. That's why I'm filling that role.

"Now. What do I take and how do I take it?" I wonder to myself as I walk down the aisles of weaponry. "Wait a minute."

I stop and listen for a second. … Nope. No one seems to be here. I was worried I'd find another weird little girl. Sarina, Spiral, Arturia, Elise, I don't feel like adding a fifth one. Best case scenario we get someone like Elise who confuses me to no end. Worst case we get _that_ girl. A chill runs down my spine as I remember that security footage from the tank. Okay, let's not invoke Her presence. That's how much She scares me. I had nightmares about possibly invoking Her presence and Her showing up and slaughtering me. Heads popping off and… _that_ can do that to someone. I'd laugh at how over the top it was if it didn't actually happen. At least that's what it being security footage would seem to imply. It's worse because I swear I recognize Her. Her voice is so goddamn familiar. Brrr. I don't want to think about this anymore.

Either way, I'm currently completely alone in this weapons vault. … Yeah, completely alone. Now, what do I take? I'm gonna need this C4, I'll take a few spare swords. Is that- no, that's Excalipoor. Almost got me there. Doesn't look like the real deal's around. Doesn't matter, we've got Derflinger and I don't think he'd like being replaced. I should talk with him more, we haven't had a nice chat in a while. I'll take this knife, just in case. Ooh, ammo. I think this works for Emily's guns. Bingo! N7 Valiant! Best gun acquired! Doesn't hurt to have a good backup.

A few more miscellaneous pickups, and I think I'm good. Now let's just head on out. … The door's locked. I'm sure I can open it from the inside. There's no handle. What self-respecting vault doesn't have a handle on the inside of the door?! Ugh, fine. I didn't want to do this (a complete lie), but I've been left no choice. I start rifling through the aisles of weaponry before finding what I was looking for.

"Alright, about a few hundred feet away, get it primed, point and get ready to shoot," I say as I point my new M-920 Cain at the vault door. "Aaaaaaand click!"

***BOOM***

The door is blown away with an almost disappointing amount of ease. Or, it would be disappointing if I hadn't just fired a miniature particle accelerator heavy weapon. That kind of makes my day.

"Alright, now let's head on out before anyone decides to investigate why the door has been disintegrated into oblivion."

I pick up the rest of my new weaponry and walk out of the weapons vault, intending to head back to the meeting point. On my way back to the front door I walk past a guard, who seems rather confused.

"Hi," I tell her.

"… Hello?" she offers. "Um…"

"Don't ask."

"I don't think I will. Have a good day, sir."

"Thank you Miss. Enjoy your evening."

I keep walking off, leaving the female guard very confused as to what just happened. I would be just as confused as her, so I can't say much about it.

***Scene Break***

It took a bit longer then expected, but I was able to drag all my weaponry to the meeting spot. I don't have a clock though, so who knows how long it took me. Weapons are heavy. I looked around upon my arrival, and couldn't see anyone.

"How'd I beat everyone here?" I wonder aloud. "Didn't I have the most work? No, Emily might have a lot to do, and Louise and Josette are probably busy dragging clothes and groceries here so in all honesty I probably did have the least amount of work."

Well, I guess I just sit on these WMDs for a while and wait for something to happen. The footsteps seem to indicate something of the like is upon me.

"Looks like you've been busy," Emily says as she walks up to me. "That's a lot of stuff."

"Always be as armed as possible. That's what I've learned from my experiences. So how'd your part go?"

"Awesome," Emily says with a grin as she sits down next to me. "I found a place for the four of us to stay, and I managed to score us a meeting. It'll be a few days from now, but we will be able to meet face to face with the pope, no problem."

"Kickass. You see Louise or Josette?"

"Present," Josette says as she and Louise walk up to us holding a bunch of bags.

"Shopping was a nightmare," Louise says. "Every store was packed full of people! It took forever just to get in line!"

"Sounds like hell. Well, Emily's knows where the house is, so lead the way."

"Follow me everyone! To our vacation house!"

"I certainly hope it's a vacation," Louise says.

"Hey! Me too!" I agree. I leave out the part about how much I'm not expecting that.

***Author Notes***

Uncreative: Man, it feels good getting this chapter out there.

Jocelyn: I'd sure hope so considering how long it took.

Uncreative: I've been busy! School's tough, you know. But let's not drag real life matters into this. So yeah, I actually had fun writing this chapter. Originally it was just going to be skip straight to the chat with the pope, but I wanted to actually show some plan set up instead of having it materialize out of thin air next chapter, or whenever it becomes important.

Jocelyn: Assuming it becomes important. Who knows when you're making things up as you go.

Uncreative: Indeed. That's really all I've got. Sorry it took so long, I'll try and get future chapters out sooner. See you all next time, we're done here.


	20. Chapter 19

**Chapter 19: Well, Shit**

"So let me get this straight," Emily says as we sat on a bench, waiting for our appointment time. "You keep talking about how this could be incredibly important and screw us over, go through all the trouble of brining Josette and scheduling this appointment and getting a house for all four of us, and you tell us to leave _anything_ that could be considered a weapon at the safe house with Josette looking after all it."

"Is that a bad thing?" I ask as I rub my wrists. It feels weird not having the hidden blades on me. I feel so alone and defenseless now. I miss them. "This is important, but we're trying to get this done and checked out peacefully. How would you feel if you were pope and three people, at least one of which has openly admitted to not liking you much, walked in armed to the teeth?"

"You could have at least let me bring my wand," Louise complains. "Sure, I've gone for 95% of my life with it being practically useless, but it feels wrong not having it on me. I'm still a noble you know. I should have my wand with me at all times."

"Trust me, if this winds up working out the way I think it will, you'll be singing my praises! 'Oh Josh, you're such a genius. Why did we ever think of doubting you? Have my babies!' Things like that."

"Wait, there was something weird about that last one-"

"You know we have a saying on Earth," I interrupt Louise. "'If you're an emissary of peace, don't carry a spear.'"

"The guy who solves problems running headfirst into them armed to the teeth is saying that to me?" Louise asks.

"And that's not a saying, it's a punchline to a joke," Emily adds.

"It is? Huh. Show's what I know," I say as I stick my hands in my jacket's front pocket. "Well, I stand by what I said."

"I dunno," Emily says. "I miss my pistols. No one would have checked under my skirt, I could have brought them with us!"

"Does that really matter?" Louise asks. "The one time I want you to talk plainly you keep dodging the question! Just spit it out clearly and concisely, why are we here, and what could happen if things go wrong?"

"…" I sigh. "Fine, fine. We are here because I have reason to believe that the pope is in possession of an ancient and powerful piece of technology that belonged to a precursor race that came long before humans, but has mysteriously vanished. I think that this item was used by Brimir and either drove him crazy or he was already kind of a douche as he most likely used it to lead his crusade against the elves. As such, I want to talk with the pope about it and see how much of that story he feels like repeating. If all goes well and it's not what I think it is or he's a nice guy and can be trusted, I ask him to open up the portal and we can go to Earth if we feel like it. Note: Don't mention that part or he'll lie to make himself seem trustworthy so we'll be in a place where we can't do anything if he's a dick. Provided he is as big a dick as I'm anticipating, he could probably sick all the forces under his control against us to try and keep us from doing anything. Since the stick will likely allow him to ability to control minds, that's a lot of forces he has control of."

Louise and Emily both seem stunned.

"Wh-what are you talking about…" Emily asks.

"Precursor… Technology… Brimir?" Louise spits out a word salad.

"Wait, wait," Emily says, trying to regain hold of the situation. "Why do you think any of that?"

"Remember the Apple of Eden we found that one time?"

"The fake treasure?" Louise asks. "What does that have to do with anything. And wasn't it called Eden's Apple?"

"Same thing, and I like Apple of Eden better, it sounds more dignified," I respond.

"I mean, yeah, I found you looking at it before we left and everything but…" Emily seems to be trying to connect the pieces. "Okay, you said you thought they were connected. Are you saying the Apple can also control minds?"

"Yeah," I nod. "Haven't tested it out, but it easily could. Part of why I didn't bring it to this meeting. If it goes south I don't want him winding up with two immensely powerful objects while we have none."

"This… This is a little too much to take in at once," Louise says.

I suppose. After all, these two didn't talk with the ancient spirit/AI that was put in the metallic ball by an elf six thousand years ago so they don't have all the information necessary to figure out just what the **** is going on. Hell, I _did_ talk with the ancient spirit/AI that was put in the metallic ball by an elf six thousand years ago and I'm not entirely certain what's going on. _I suppose that's what this is really about_,I think as my grip tightens on the failsafe in my pocket. _Getting answers so we can get the hell out of here._

"You three," a guard says as they walk up to us. "You're here to see His Holiness, correct?"

"Yea… You?" I ask as the guard's face registers in my brain.

She seems confused for a moment, before gasping in surprise.

"The kid from a few days ago?" she asks. "What are you doing here? What did you do with all those weapons? Where'd you even find them?"

"You know her?" Louise asks.

"We ran into each other when I visited the weapons vault," I say with a shrug. "Don't worry, I'm not armed today. Neither are these two if you're wondering. Strictly peace talk today."

"I still feel like I should arrest you or something," she seems suspicious. "You did steal all those weapons, didn't you?"

"No. Julio informed me that whatever was in there was rightfully mine," I say, thanking the little **** for what will likely be the only time ever. "I just needed to borrow a bit of it."

"Uh-huh," she doesn't seem convinced. "I'll ask Sir Julio later. For now, you three did somehow manage to get an appointment with His Holiness, so follow me to where he is right now."

"Lead the way…" I prompt for a name.

"Catherine de' Medici," she fills in. "Captain of the guard. Do anything suspicious and you'll have every guard in a three mile radius breathing down your neck."

"Oh," I reply.

"We'll try not to step on any toes while we're here," Emily offers in my stead.

"We're only here to consult with His Holiness on a very important matter," Louise adds. "We wish no trouble."

"See that it stays that way," Catherine tells us. "Now follow me."

First impressions: Catherine scares me. Unfortunately I have no choice but to follow her, and so I shall. She leads us into a room farther into the building, and then stops.

"You may enter," Catherine tells us. "I'm sure he is expecting you."

"You're not coming?" I ask.

"I have no reason to enter," she says. "I'll have you know that I will be waiting right outside the door though in case anything happens."

"Right, right." I dismiss the threat with a wave of my hand. "See you when we come out Cat."

"My name is Catherine!"

I ignore her and walk in with Louise and Emily trailing behind me. Inside the room we find the Pope and Julio waiting for us.

"Nice vase," I say as we walk in. "Cost much, or have some religious value?"

"No," the Pope replies with a wry smile. "It is merely decorative. Rather cheap, as well."

"His holiness welcomes you Joshua, Louise and…" Julio blanks for a minute on Emily's name.

"Emily! Emily Kimberly Pilgrim!" she yells at him.

"Right, Ms. Pilgrim," Julio says with a smug smirk. "My apologies, you've done very little of note so I couldn't remember you."

"Jackass," Emily mutters under her breath.

"Be polite Julio," the pope says. "She was able to talk to us and schedule a meeting. Not many people can do that. Though, if I may ask, what was it you wished to talk about? Ms. Pilgrim only said that it was a very important and urgent matter that you needed to discuss immediately."

"If I had details I would have given them," Emily says.

"As it stands the only one who had the details yet refused to share them was my familiar," Louise says. "He's been shady about it since bringing up the trip, refusing to say anything about it until recently."

I shrug. "I'm an asshole, sue me."

"Maybe some other time," Julio says. "Perhaps you could cut to the chase, as they say?"

"Sure. Mr. Aegis, Vittorio, whatever your name is. How much do you know about the Piece of Eden you're holding onto?"

There's silence for a bit as my question sets on the air. Eventually Julio chuckles, breaking the mood.

"Is that what you wished to ask? What a stupid question," Julio says, shaking his head from side to side.

"Don't bother, Julio," the pope says. "He already knows, or he wouldn't be asking the question. Forgive me for answering with another question, but how did you come to learn of the Pieces of Eden? It's hardly common knowledge."

How to answer this. Minerva is inside the Apple, so he wouldn't know about her. He does know about the Pieces of Eden, which means that he's familiar with Those Who Came Before. Which means he knows more then I do. … Bingo.

"I know because inside me is the blood of the Ones Who Came Before." _At least that's what Minney told me. Don't let me down spectral AI!_

Reactions vary among the cast. Louise and Emily don't seem to understand at all and their face shows it. Julio seems contemplative, as if trying to solve a math problem that he knows that answer too but doesn't know how to get there. The pope simply smiles, clearly expecting that answer, the weirdly-hatted bastard.

"I see," he replies. "Oh, do pray tell. Do you even know what that means?"

DAMN EVERYTHING! He saw through my ruse! Shit, Josh! Bullshit like you've never bullshitted before! … Breakthrough imminent. Talk through it! That's how you solve problems.

"It means I'm like you," I reply. "I can use the Pieces of Eden thanks to what Those Who Came Before have passed on through countless generations."

This discussion seems to have boiled down to simply me and the Pope, because even Julio seems lost after my last statement. As such, it's really only the Pope who would be talking, as I'm just throwing words at the wall and hoping what sticks is the right answer.

"Ah, I underestimated you," the Pope replies. "I expected you to know a few terms to toss around without knowing the full meaning, but it seems you know more then you let on."

Y-yeah. That's it. I was totally sandbagging the entire time, I'm a super genius who's a million moves ahead of you. Pleasebuyitpleasebuyitpleasebuyit.

"SOMEONE catch me up here!" Emily complains.

"What are you two talking about?" Louise asks. "Will someone please talk in plain terms for once!"

"Allow me. Louise, do you know why we are blessed with the powers of void?" the Pope asks, completely changing the tone of the conversation.

"E-eh? It's because the founder Brimir blessed the royal bloodlines of the four nations, didn't he?" Louise asks.

"Not incorrect," the Pope admits. "Surely you of all people have noticed it. The differences between Void and the other four branches, that is. Have you noticed how strange and… artificial Void is when compared to the other four branches? How unnatural it is? The other four elements bend what is already there to their user's will and yet Void is completely different. Have you ever noticed that?"

"… What are you trying to say?" Louise asks, caution creeping into her voice.

"I'm saying that Void, as an element should never have existed," the Pope tells her. "It seems like artificial magic because it is. It isn't a naturally occurring element. Do you know where it came from then, if that isn't the case?" He takes the room's silence as consent to continue. "Long ago, millennia before even the Founder was born, Humans were not the only race to walk this world. We were ruled by Those Who Came Before. Their abilities dwarfed anything humans back then could ever hope to be capable of, with or without magic. We were slaves to the First Civilization. They used their magic to control us and have their way with us.

"Ultimately, this led to a few… half-breeds, shall we call them, being born. The First Civilization noticed something odd about these half-breeds. They used a different system of magic then the others. A magic system that didn't focus on altering the elements of the Earth. They called that element, Void."

"Wh-what?" Louise seems shocked. I would be, but I can't say I didn't expect this. I mean, what are the odds that he's a void user _and_ part First Civilization? There had to be a connection somewhere. Also, I'm jaded from experiencing things like that before in like twenty different TV shows.

"There were a few other quirks regarding the half-breeds," the Pope continues, looking at the Staff he holds in his hand. "Such as the ability to use the First Civilizations own items against them. I'm sure you can imagine what happened next."

"Rebellion," Julio finishes, not giving anyone else a chance to react.

"… And h-how did that turn out?" Emily asks.

"If only I knew," the Pope says with a sad chuckle. "I imagine it went poorly for both sides. After all, do you see any of the First Civilization left? Or many Void users for that matter? Am I doing a good job of answering your question, Mr. Springfield? Shall I go on, or do you have a specific topic you'd like me to address?"

"The Papal Staff," I say. "What did Brimir do with it, exactly?"

"He led humanity on a crusade and wiped out the elves, of course," the Pope says nonchalantly. "'Humanity's enemy' I believe they were called. 'We must destroy them before they destroy us.' How easy it is to fear something that's more powerful then you, no matter how peaceful it may be."

"… And what do you plan to do with the Staff?" Louise asks.

"You three are smarter then that, I'm sure you don't need me to tell you," the Pope says with a smile.

"You're going to wipe out the Elves, just like Brimir did 6000 years ago," I say. "You're going to try and reclaim the holy land using the Staff of Eden."

"Ah, good thing I learned not to underestimate you earlier," the Pope says. "You really are more perceptive then first impressions would imply."

"B-b-but why?!" Louise asks. "What did the elves do to deserve that?!"

"I believe I've already informed you on why I believe we should reclaim the holy land," the Pope says. "I don't quite feel like repeating my stance, though I stand by it. We live in fear. A united front against the elves would help us grow past it and would let peace exist between the nations."

Still bullshit, but that's not what's bugging me right now.

"So. You have an object capable of controlling minds, the same one that Brimir used to lead what was probably an unwarranted mass slaughter, and you admit to planning to do the exact same thing," I sum up. "That being the case, why tells us? Why not just feign ignorance and continue on without our knowledge?"

"You already had the knowledge," the Pope replies. "The minute you asked about the Piece of Eden our cover was blown. Even if we ended this conversation without you three knowing anything, you would have found out some other way. This way you get the information directly from me, with no chance of miscommunication."

"And now that we know we can start working to stop this!" Louise announces.

"Yeah! Don't think we'll just roll over and let this kind of thing happen!" Emily adds.

"Of course you wouldn't," Julio says, pulling a gun out of his pocket. "Really, it'd be disappointing if you did."

***BANG***

"What?" I ask as Julio lowers the gun. "What the hell did the vase ever do to you?"

Yeah, Julio shot the decorative vase. What a shit shot.

"Your holiness!" Catherine cries as she runs into the room. "I heard a gunshot!"

"These three are guilty of attempting to assassinate me. Be a dear and arrest them?" the Pope asks.

"Oh you fu- hey!"

I'm cut off when my hands are bound behind my back by earth tendrils. Louise and Emily had their hands bound in a similar manner at the same time. So, Ms. Captain's an earth mage. Wish I knew that earlier.

"You three are coming with me!" Catherine declares. "We'll deal with your punishment at a later date."

"Thank you Captain," the Pope says. "Oh, and you can put them in one cell. We should really save room, after all."

"Understood sir," Catherine says.

"Oh come on! What evidence is there against us?" I complain as we get pulled out the door. I flip off the Pope and Julio as I exit, so at least I got a moral victory out of it.

The three of us were silent as Catherine pulled us along to what I can assume is the popely prison cells. Eventually we got there and Catherine had us stand in a line. She started in the back with Louise, patting her down.

"No wand?" Catherine asks.

"Not on me," Louise complains.

"Be grateful. If you had it, I'd have to confiscate it and you'd never see it again," Catherine tells her.

Louise and Emily perk up at that statement, finally seeing the method to my madness. After a quick Emily frisking, it was my turn. Catherine stopped when she got to my jacket. She reaches into my pocket and pulls out something acutely similar to a brick.

"What's this supposed to be? Your intended murder weapon?"

"It's my lucky brick," I tell her dryly. "It helps me sleep at night."

"Um..." She doesn't seem to know what to do. "Whatever!"

Catherine tosses the brick into a nearby cell and then pushes the three of us in after it. She locks the door, then disenchants our makeshift handcuffs.

"I should take it," Catherine says. "But what are you going to do with a brick in there?"

"Hey, don't go dissing my magic brick!" I jokingly scold her.

"Enjoy your stay, assassins," Catherine spits at us before walking off, leaving us all alone in our cell.

"Well, shit," Emily says, summing up our situation.

"So was this the worst case scenario?" Louise asks.

"Pretty much exactly the worst case scenario," I confirm. "Well, let's get started."

"Started on what?!" Louise demands. "We've been imprisoned for attempted assassination! How do you propose we get ourselves out of this situation?"

"Easy," I say as I finish putting the C4 brick on the wall. I pull the detonator out of my pocket and put a finger to the button. "You three might want to get as far away from the wall as possible."

***BOOM***

The C4 detonates, blowing a huge hole in the wall. A hole easily large enough for us to get out.

"Emily, you're sure it's really a _safe_ house?" I ask her as I bring my hood over my head.

"Y-yeah," she says as she dusts the aftermath off of herself. "I had a feeling that we'd need something like that, what with how much you've been hyping up how horribly this could go.

"Awesome. Everyone, split up. We'll meet up at the safe house and figure out what to do from there. Try and stay as hidden and inconspicuous as possible. Ready? Go!"

We worm our way out of the hole and run off in three different directions, all with the same destination in mind.

"Damn," I tell myself as I worm my way through the crowded streets. "That could have gone so much better."

***Author Notes***

Uncreative: I liked this chapter. I _really_ liked writing this chapter. It started off a little rough, but then I got really into it. I think this might be the quickest I've ever gotten a chapter done as a result.

Jocelyn: Good job! Anyway, you sure decided to go all out with the Assassin's Creed stuff, didn't you?

Uncreative: Damn right! I figured "Hell, we've got the Pieces of Eden, and Minerva showing up, let's go balls out." Was it a good idea? ... Nah, probably not. Either way, the final season is set up. We've got Josh and co. Vs. Pope and co.

Jocelyn: It only seems right to have the pope be the villain. It seems so fitting.

Uncreative: We also had some more screentime for the guard that showed up briefly last chapter, Catherine.

Jocelyn: She seems fun. Why's she here though?

Uncreative: Because she showed up last chapter.

Jocelyn: ... That's it?

Uncreative: Pretty much. I wrote the gag at the end of last chapter with the incredulous guard, and realized that this was the perfect chance to bring her back. Why bother brining her back? Because it seems fun.

Jocelyn: Sounds good to me. Now we can get this season underway!

Uncreative: Hopefully I can figure out what to do next and quick. I was thinking another flashback chapter to 6000 years ago, but we'll see. We're done here, see you next time.

Jocelyn: Bye everybody!


	21. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20: Let's do the Time Warp Again**

"OHMYGODWHATHAPPENED?!" Josette asks the second I step into the safe house.

"Give me a second," I say as I walk over the table and grab my hidden blades. "Oh god, I missed these things far more then I should. Anyway, what's up? Why are you so upset now?"

"I heard what happened!" Josette says. "You three are wanted for trying to kill the Pope and for breaking out of jail! What happened?"

"Damn, word spreads really fast, doesn't it?" I muse as I slip the hidden blades back into their rightful place. I love these things. Real talk: If I had a choice to turn any one item into a girl that would love me forever, it would be these things. I know that that's basically cheating on Louise but come on! I don't know, these things are just sooooo cool! I mean, it's an arm guard, a knife, a gun, a zipline, it's freaking everything! It's the greatest freaking thing ever made!

"Would you stop working on your bracers and talk to me already!" Josette yells, before covering her mouth. "S-sorry. I got carried away."

"No, I'm sorry," I tell her. "I'm working through everything myself a bit. See…"

That ellipses was solely for my own benefit. That way instead of saying everything over again, I can just say that I recapped the story for Josette's benefit. That way I don't waste any time going over what we already know. It just happened, after all.

"G-genocide?" Josette asks. "The founder? B-but-"

"If it makes you feel better, I'm not sure about it yet either," I tell her. "I mean sure, the Pope confirmed it, be we've confirmed that the Pope is an asshole. I plan on doing a little research myself before we start our next move."

"What do you mean?" Josette asks.

"I'll be in my room for… probably the rest of the night," I tell her. "When Louise and Emily get back make sure to politely ask them to not bother me, okay?"

"Um… O-okay?" Josette still seems rather confused. "What should I tell them?"

"Just tell them I'm busy. Keep it simple, okay?"

"O-okay. I'll do my best."

I'd make a crack about how she's not really doing anything, but the conviction and serious she's showing is just so damn adorable. I'll let her have this moment.

"Good girl," I say, betraying my comment from seconds ago by smiling and giving her a pat on the head.

"Abuhbuhbuhbuh."

Eh? Josette's face is all red and she's apparently turned into a car engine when I wasn't looking. Did I do something wrong? Should I apologize? … I should probably leave her be.

"Good luck Josette," I tell her before slipping away into my room. "Now. Where'd I leave that thing? Ah! Here it is."

I toss the Apple of Eden onto the desk my room has before taking a seat. Welp. Really nothing to do but dive in and ask Minerva for a little advice before taking another time warp, right? Ahhhh, but I'm too damn tired to do it now! I just busted out of prison after being told that the Pope is planning genocide! Damn everything, I want to sleep on this stuff! Screw it. The sooner we get this thing wrapped up the sooner I get to go home.

I grab a hold of the Apple and let it do it's glowing thing. I blink and suddenly I'm in the loading screen room again.

"You have returned."

"Indeed I have," I tell Minerva. "Learned a bunch of interesting things since I've been gone. Before we start, mind telling me if there's any other Pieces of Eden hanging around? I'd hate to have those be hanging around as wild cards."

"Unfortunately, the Staff and the Apple are all that remain in this world," Minerva tells me. "The rest have either been destroyed or moved elsewhere."

"That elsewhere being somewhere not easily accessible, correct?" I ask.

"There is no chance of you or anyone else being able to retrieve them," Minerva says. "The only ones with the capability had no knowledge of their existence."

That's nice. Less to worry about. I'm glad this isn't going to devolve into a fetch quest to see who gets the most magic objects first. That'd be annoying.

"I suppose that the location of those will probably be in these memory things," I say with a vague gesture towards the floating glass shards hanging around. "Well, I'm going in. Wish me luck Minney!"

"My name is Minerva."

"Right. Got it Minney."

***Scene Break***

Alright, where am I now? Looks like an empty, grassy field. A rather familiar looking empty, grassy field. Isn't this where I woke up during the first time loop? Warp. Time warp. Loops are different. I think. Though now that I think about it-

"Grrrrrrrr."

"Will you shut up you stupid wolves and just let me think for once?! … Wait."

Wolves are back. Really should have seen that one coming. Four of them this time, instead of the… Three was it? I think it was three last time. I have a pretty shit memory. Guess I should probably-

*SHING*

Sit here and watch as the wolves are offed in a second by this hooded person here. Well. Okay, that's nice of you. I kind of wanted a warm up though, since I haven't done much of anything since that fight against King Joseph. Other then that I've just sort of sat on my hands, so I was worried I might be getting rusty. But that's okay, save me the trouble of the wolves and let me know that I'm nowhere near that level of swordsmanship.

"You and really need to learn to stay away from this place. Wolves flock to you amazingly quickly," the person says, sheathing their sword before turning to face me and removing her hood.

"… Sasha you grew your hair out."

Yeah, her hair used to reach _maaaaybe_ her shoulders, but now it easily reaches her back.

"THAT's the first thing you say?" she seems offended. "Not, 'Oh thanks for the save Sasha you really helped me out,' or 'Gee, how nice to have friends like you,' or 'Sorry for leaving for so long,' or anything?! You go straight for the hair? I can't believe you!"

"Whoa!" I bend back to dodge the punch she swung at me. "Sorry?"

"Sorry doesn't cut it! You vanish for who knows how long, show up in the middle of an empty field and expect me to just save you and be okay with it?"

"… How long have I been gone? I have a horrible sense of time." Okay, so it's been a while since the thing with getting the Apple. Good to know. Wish I had known before going in so I could have prepared a story ahead of time, but this is… really bad, actually. I'd rather not find out what happens if I die in a flashback.

"A year!" she yells at me. "You mocked how we didn't know where the Valiag leader was and just vanished! Now you just act all casual about it?"

"Yes." I mean, it was only about a week ago for me, and I didn't really have any control over when the Apple decided to fast forward.

"You barbarian!" Sasha punches me in the face, and I hit the floor hard.

"Ow! That really stings you know!" I complain as I start pulling myself up.

"Don't act you haven't earned it," Sasha scoffs. "Consider yourself lucky that I'm not doing worse."

"Probably wouldn't be the worse thing I've ever been hit with," I say as I start dusting myself off.

"What are you doing out here anyway?" Sasha asks. "Don't tell me you were drugged and woke up here again."

"For better or worse, I'm here completely of my own will," I assure her. "I was in the neighborhood and thought I'd stop by."

"And your master is where exactly?" she asks.

"Back at home being looked over by some friends. I'll bring her next time," I tell her. "Where's your… I won't ask."

The question died when I saw her expression. She looks rather hurt. Did something happen? He couldn't be dead, I think. What's going on?

"No, that's okay," she says. "I'm not currently traveling with him. We're not on speaking terms anymore."

"I missed some very important things, didn't I?" I ask, simultaneously stating the obvious.

"You could say that," Sasha says with a weak smile. "Come on, walk back with me. I could use a friendly face."

I nod my consent, and she leads the way back to… wherever the hell we're going. We were silent for a bit, me because I couldn't think of any topics and Sasha for reasons unknown. Shit, what am I even here to do? I need to learn more about the Staff, I suppose. Don't know how to do that with this set up. Sasha's not in the mood to talk, and I really don't want to milk her for information on something like that. _"So Sasha, I can see you're having some hard times. How about tell me everything you know about the Staff of Eden?"_ That'd be a really dick move. I'm not that much of a dick.

"Hey," I start since I'm desperate for a topic. "Where we going?"

"My village," she tells me. "It's the only place I can rest easily anymore."

"How so?" I ask. "Is it like you have insomnia and can't sleep normally but they have some kind of super voodoo powers that fix that up for you?"

"Don't call my people's magic 'super voodoo powers,'" Sasha says with a displeased look on her face. "It makes us seem like necromancers and the like."

"Just saying, I knew a witch doctor once and he said he had cures for insomnia. Of course he constantly pissed his pants and called himself the chicken god, but other then that he was alright."

Sasha starts chuckling. "You sound like you know some very strange people."

"Trust me, that guy was sane compared to a few of them… I take that back, he was probably the weirdest. Dude was weird as all hell. Cool guy though. Taught me how to get out of handcuffs and other wrist bindings. Not sure why a witch doctor needs to know that, but whatever."

"It's an important skill for anyone to know," Sasha says. "You should always know how to escape should your opponent have gotten the drop on you and tied you up."

"Have you had to do that?" I ask.

"… No."

"So that's a yes."

"No, it was a no."

"A very pause filled and uncertain no."

"No still means no."

"Unless it doesn't mean no, in which case it means yes, with yes also meaning yes thus answering in the affirmative no matter the question."

"Sometimes I question if you truly are insane, or just pretend to be to throw people off."

"I'll let you know when I figure it out myself."

"Miss Sasha, you've returned!" A new voice says.

Wait, we've already arrived? We weren't walking for that long, were we? Either way, the new person seems be a much smaller version of Sasha. My god, she's adorable. I mean, being completely honest Sasha pretty cute herself, but making her into a smaller package ups the adorableness. … I need some freaking sleep, I've been feeling all sorts of off since I broke out that freaking jail. Wanting to make love to the hidden blades if they were a girl and now talking about adorable mini-Sasha. I think weird things when I'm tired, apparently.

"It's good to see you Marisa," Sasha says, kneeling down to ruffle the girl's hair. "How is everything in the village?"

"No disturbances, and no one has reported any signs of them," the little Marisa replies. "We thought they had picked up on where we were, but it seems that's not the case."

Sasha smiles. "You're such a good girl Marisa. I'm so proud of you, being able to get that kind of information yourself."

Marisa grows a huge, goofy grin. "Heheh. It's because I'm good at my job!"

"Certainly sounds like it," I remark.

Marisa's mood sours immediately. "Are you patronizing me hu… Human!"

Now she seems really scared. She reaches for her belt and pulls out a small dagger to point at me.

"D-don't make me!" she threatens, the knife point shaking as she tries to keep it centered on me. "J-just go away and forget we're here! Go away!"

"Did… Did I do something wrong?" I wonder out loud.

"Marisa, put the dagger away," Sasha says, trying to diffuse the situation. "It's alright."

"It's not alright!" Marisa says. "He's a human! He's probably going to lead the rest of them here and wipe us out!"

… Am I really that threatening?

"Marisa, he's with me," Sasha says. "He's an old friend."

"How do you know that?" Marisa exclaims.

"I think she'd know if I was an old friend. Just throwing that out there," I say dryly.

"Not what I meant! How do we know you're not a spy for them? You humans all hate elves, don't you?" Marisa accuses me.

"Marisa, it's okay, put the dagger away," Sasha says as she puts a hand on Marisa's. "It's alright. He can be trusted."

"How do you know?" Marisa asks, sounding less angry and more unsure.

"I trust him," Sasha says. "I'm sure you can too."

I feel like such shit. I've done pretty much nothing to deserve anything of that sort. We met, we chatted, we fought an army together and that's about it. The fact that she trusts me really makes me feel super shitty. But apparently it's enough for Marisa, who puts her knife away after a moment's consideration.

"I'll trust you. But only because Sasha says so," Marisa tells me.

"Thanks. I'd be stupid to expect much more."

"A-are you mocking me?" She sounds less insulted and more confused. It seems she really doesn't know if I'm mocking her or not.

"No, I'm being honest. We've never met and it sounds like there's some bad blood with the humans, so it's actually really smart of you to be suspicious of me."

"I'm smart?" I nod in response to her question. She gets that big grin again as a result. Seems she's highly susceptible to flattery. Not that that was my intention, I did genuinely agree with her.

"Okay, I'll allow you into the village this one time," Marisa tells me. "I'll go in and let every else know so that they don't start freaking out like I did."

"Thank you very much," I tell her before she runs off towards what's probably the village.

"Sweet girl," I tell Sasha. "Friend of yours?"

"Yes. I'm sorry she caused you trouble," Sasha apologizes. "I suppose I didn't think this one through."

"Hey, I never think things through, so I can't criticize you for that," I admit. "I suppose we should find a spot in the village to sit down and have a little chat?"

Sasha nods. "Yeah, that sounds good. Come on. Let's go."

***Scene Break***

"Brr."

"What's the matter?" Sasha asks. "Cold?"

"No, just creeped out. The stares were a bit much for me, you know? I mean, everyone was staring. I expected to get stabbed at any second."

"That probably wouldn't happen," Sasha assures me. "I don't think there's anyone here that suspicious of you, especially since you had Marisa vouch for you. You shouldn't have anything to worry about."

"Still makes me feel uncomfortable. What's up with the human hate? I know we're 'barbarians' and all that, but are we really that evil?"

Sasha sighs. "No, it's not anyone's fault really. We've been at war with the humans for the past few months, so we've become rather paranoid."

"War? Why? Who screwed what up?"

Sasha chuckles again. "That's a funny way of asking it. Answering honestly… I'd have to say it was me. I really do blame myself for this whole mess. I should have seen it coming, and I didn't. Now we're all in a horrible situation."

"Mind starting from the beginning?" I ask.

"I'll make it brief, since I don't like discussing it much," Sasha says. "See, we were right about the Apple being our key. With it we were able to easily defeat the leader of the Valiag and end that war. You were right when you suggested that he had a something similar to the Apple. His was a staff instead of a ball though. We were able to use the Apple to counteract the effects and take it for ourselves. Perhaps it would have been a better idea to simply destroy it and the Apple."

Would have saved me, Louise, Emily and Josette a lot of trouble, I'll say that much. Hindsight is 20/20 I suppose.

"See, I don't know exactly what it is, but I think the staff infects the user," Sasha says. "Or something. Brimir was never like that before, but once he got the staff he started having all sorts of weird ideas. He started behaving incredibly oddly. He would start ranting about the elves, and how superior they though they were. It kept getting worse and worse. Eventually, he declared war on us. If people didn't necessarily agree with him, that didn't matter. He could simply make them listen to him."

"That's…" hard to react to since I already knew but I can't let her know that.

"Odd, I know," luckily Sasha reacts for me. "He never acted anything like that before. He hated confrontation, and tried settling things peacefully whenever possible, so how could he suddenly decide that genocide was the best option? He must be being controlled by that thing. It's the only explanation."

I'm not so sure, but I just barely found out about the Pieces of Eden and all that stuff around a week ago, I'm hardly an encyclopedia about the subject. I'm here precisely because I want to learn more and an encyclopedia isn't available.

"Hey, Josh."

"Hmmm? Yes?"

"Can I ask a big favor?"

"No."

"… Seriously?"

"You really think I'd say no?"

"You just did."

"You think I was serious about it?"

"I can never tell with you, that's what's troubling," Sasha says. "Whatever, I'm asking anyway. Can you lend us your help?"

"Sure."

"… You're not going to ask what we need your help for?"

"Dealing with Brimir, I assume," I say. "And sure, I'll gladly help. I think I've made my opinion on brainwashing very clear, and I'm rather against genocide just out of principle. I'll do whatever I can to help."

"Thank you very much," Sasha says with a smile. "There's a spare room upstairs you can use while you're here."

"Bitchin'. Guess I'll go get acquainted with my new room," I say as I head for upstairs.

"Josh."

"Yes?" I ask as I turn towards Sasha.

"Thank you. I mean it."

"Don't worry about it," I say, offering a smile. "We'll get this wrapped up as quickly as possible so no one has to worry about anything anymore. This won't take long at all."

***END OF MEMORY SEGMENT***

What an odd place to end. Still, I feel like I got a lot out of that. If nothing else, I'm now in a position to start learning more. Don't know what I'm going to _do_ with that knowledge, but if nothing else I'm curious and it certainly can't hurt. Speaking of curiosity.

"Hey, Minerva. I sure as hell wasn't alive 6000 years ago when these events happened, so what exactly is happening when I view the memory segments?"

"The Apple allows you to interact with the memories stored within it as they were," Minerva begins. "Things may be altered depending on how far out of sync you go with the memory, but events are how they occurred."

"So, I'm basically being inserted into a position nobody filled because it didn't exist?"

"Correct."

"That's so stupid! I mean, I couldn't be taking on the role of someone who was actually there, we just have to throw me in there like an afterthought? What a ripoff!"

"I have my doubts that you would enjoy experiencing those moments as Sasha," Minerva counters.

"… Point conceded. Well, I guess that's enough memory diving for one day, I'm going to go catch up on some sleep. See you next time."

Minerva simply nods and I exit from the Apple loading screen. … Okay, it's nighttime now. At least, according to the view from my window. Time to sleep!

**Author Notes:**

Jocelyn: Marisa! What's she doing here?

Uncreative: Different Marisa.

Jocelyn: Aww!

Uncreative: Right, might as well start with Marisa. I don't think she'll be showing up more, but I've been wrong before. I just need a character to greet Sasha when they got to the village, and I couldn't think of a name for her. Marisa is a character in Empty Boundaries-

Jocelyn: My story! You should read it to find out all about Marisa. I like her, she's cool.

Uncreative: And the name stuck. The two have no connection, I just needed a name. Nothing else really happened, it was just a chance for a time skip of sorts to get the 6000 years ago story up to the point it needed to be, with the first crusade against the elves in full swing. I… don't know how I'm going to follow up on this.

Jocelyn: Is that anything new? It'll be fine. You just need to come up with the plot threads for two storylines now, the one involving the pope and modern day and the one with Brimir and Sasha. Shouldn't be that, they're basically the same story if you think about it.

Uncreative: Right. Well, that's all I've got. Here's to getting more done during the new year.

Jocelyn: Happy new year everyone!


	22. Chapter 21

**Chapter 21: Great, now what's step 2?**

Ah, it feels so good to wake up in a city where everyone is hunting you down for assassinating the leader of the largest religious denomination in the continent. Also the only religious denomination as far as I'm aware, so that makes it even better. Well, it's morning now so Louise and Emily are probably back. Whether or not they're up is a different matter entirely. It also doesn't matter as _I_ am up, and so I shall go about my breakfast.

That stated, I head downstairs and for the kitchen where I found the girls sitting around the table, as if waiting for me.

"Glad to see you're finally up," Louise says. "It's already past noon."

"Stay up late?" Emily asks. "Josette told us you were busy when we got back."

"I did exactly what you told me to!" Josette says in that adorable way of hers that filled with conviction.

"So what's out next step?" Emily asks.

"Holy shit-"

"Swear."

"Holy shoot, I just realized something," I say, fixing the sentence for Josette's convenience. "Everyone I know in this world is a girl, I don't know anyone whose a guy!"

"_Now_ is the time you realize something that stupid?" Louise asks.

"That's not stupid, it's the truth!" I argue. "Think about it! There's you, Emily, Josette, Kirche, Tabitha, Montmorency, Henrietta, Tiffania, everyone's a girl! The only guy I know is Guiche, and I'm really not too certain about him sometimes. It's so weird, why didn't I realize that sooner? That's like the first thing someone should notice!"

"Is there a point to your rambling, or are you just that inattentive that you didn't notice until now?" Louise asks.

"I swear, I had no idea. It litterly just hit me when I saw you three sitting there and realized there wasn't a single Y chromosome here other then mine. It's a pretty startling revelation, you know?"

"No, I don't," Louise says, with Emily nodding as backup. "It also hardly strikes me as important when three of us are wanted for attempted murder. That seems a bit more important, doesn't it?"

"Well in the technical sense I suppose so," I admit. "Geez, I never noticed. I really need to pay more attention to things."

"So as was stated earlier, we're kind of in trouble," Emily opens up with. "The pope is trying to slaughter all of the elves just as the founder did 6000 years ago. We're the only ones that know, but the entire nation of Romalia probably wants us dead. As such, we really can't leave as if we tried to get a ship out of here we would be apprehended easily."

"Not that we want to leave anyway," I say. "there's not much we can do to stop the pope from Tristain."

"There's that too," Louise says. "If word spread through Romalia so quickly about the incident, it's only a matter of time before it spreads to other nations. Even if we could make it out here, we would probably be apprehended in any other country and shipped back here for punishment. There's nothing the Princess could possibly due to just cover this up if it's as public as it is."

"So we can't just drop by and ask for help," I say. "If we did and she said yes, that's probably some good grounds for war which is something I would desperately like to avoid. I mean holy shhhhhhoot. There was the war with Albion, which laster forever and then transitioned into the war with Germania almost directly afterwards which also lasted forever. I'd rather not see and take part in a war with literally every other nation on the continent."

"I don't want there to be a war," Josette says. "S-so what are our options? What can we do about this?"

"As far as I see it we have two option," I say. "Well really only one option, but I'll throw the second one out there for the heck of it. One: we acquire the Pope's staff and destroy it. I doubt he'd be able to drum up enough support for a crusade against the elves without it. He wouldn't even be able to do anything about the elves without it."

"And the second option?" Louise asks.

"Kill the Pope, which is a godawful and stupid idea," I say. "I mean, even tossing aside the moral and ethical problems with killing the leader of a nation and the largest religious denomination in the continent, that's exactly what we're wanted for. We're not going to prove ourselves innocent of trying to kill the Pope by killing him. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure the law doesn't work like that."

"If I may, how are we supposed to clear our name?" Josette asks.

"You don't, you're fine," I tell her. "You weren't there so they don't know you exist. Us three on the other hand have a much harder time ahead of us. Basically, we need to get word out that the Pope is trying a crusade against the elves, tell everyone why this is a bad idea and let them know that we knew, told him it was a bad idea and framed us for attempted assassination and that we were completely set up, completely discrediting the Pope and probably getting him excommunicated in the process. We have a _loooooot_ of work ahead of us."

"That's… quite a laundry list," Emily says. "You sure we can pull that all off?"

"Of course!" I declare. "I have absolute faith in our group to do anything we need too! We've totally got this!"

"Uh… huh," Louise doesn't seems as enthusiastic as I am. Expected result.

"I-I'll help in any way that I can," Josette says.

"Then first question," I say. "Are you a noble by any chance?"

"E-eh?" Josette seems surprised. "Wh-why do you ask?"

"Well if you can do any magic, then we could start planning around that a bit," I explain.

"Um…" Josette seems rather hesitant to talk. Why's that? Is it some super serious topic that should never be discussed? "I was a noble, once. I'm not anymore."

"… Well. That sucks?" I don't really know what to say to that.

"No, not really," Josette says with a weak smile. "I was to young to grow accustomed to it, so I don't miss it. Mother was a rather accomplished water mage, though she never got a chance to teach me anything, so all I can cast is a few low level unaligned spells."

"Is that so?" Louise asks. "It sounds like you've had an interesting life."

"Don't bother asking about it," Emily says. "She'll change the topic to the weather. Or goats."

Josette shudders. "Never again."

… Goats.

"I'll refrain from asking."

"Please do," Josette says.

"It was a hell of a story though," Emily says, nodding nostalgically. "But that's not important. What's our first course of action? Obviously we're going with the 'destroy the pope-stick' plan, but how do we do that? Are you even sure it _can_ be destroyed?"

"Oh yeah," I say with a nod. "Easily. Not a problem whatsoever. That's not the problem."

"The problem is how we actually get the staff," Louise says.

"Exactly," I confirm. "I'm confident in my abilities to sneak around and all that good stuff. I snuck into the weapons vault and got all those weapons after all. However, now that we've escaped and the pope is aware that we know about his plan, security is probably much tighter and he probably has the staff with him at all times. There's probably no way that we could just sneak in and grab it. That option's dead before it could even be considered."

"So what options do we have that would work with just the four of us?" Emily asks.

"Couldn't you call your friends?" Josette asks. "Would they be able to help?"

Me, Louise and Emily all exchange looks, before shaking our heads.

"Denied," we all voice our thoughts simultaneously.

"H-huh?" Josette seems surprised. "Why not? They're your friends, right? I'm sure they'd love to help if you asked them to!"

"That's the problem," Emily says.

"I don't want to get them involved in this," Louise says. "It's too dangerous."

"If they help us out then they're aiding national criminals, and then they can get into just as much trouble as we would," I explain further. "Not to mention Tabitha's queen of Gallia or something now, so that wouldn't work for the same reason Henrietta wouldn't work."

"Q-q-queen?" Josette says, clearly shocked. "But I t-t-thought the queen was Charlotte, Joseph's niece?"

"Oh yeah, Tabitha was just a pseudonym, wasn't it?" I wonder aloud, thinking about how much better of a name Tabitha is compared to Charlotte. Nothing against people named Charlotte, it just reminds me too much of candyworms and despair. "Well, Tabitha is Charlotte, so there's that. Still can't call her since she'd be recognized."

"So what do we do, just lay low until an opportunity presents itself for us to do something?" Louise asks.

"Well we did stockpile for a reason," I say with a shrug. "I don't want to go on the offensive until we're certain we can do something. I'd hate for us to walk into a trap and then it's al 'Oh damn, we suck. Looks like we failed everyone.' I'd rather not go down that route, all things considered."

"So we just stay in this house until then?" Emily asks. "That seems way too boring."

"No, you can go out if you want," I say. "I don't see why you wouldn't be able to. You just need to be a little cautious is all."

"Kickass!" Emily says. "I suppose I should keep an eye on my network though. Never know when something might present itself. I'll be locking myself in my room for the next few hours, so don't bug me. See you all tomorrow!"

And with that, Emily stands up and makes a mad dash for her room, leaving me and Louise with the catatonic Josette. At least, she seems that way since she hasn't moved for a while. She must be tired from the conversation. Or something like that. Maybe. I think.

"We'll, I guess that means we're done for the day," I say as I also stand up. I guess I just go back to my room and dick around until something comes up. How exciting. The thrilling adventures of Joshua Springfield and his merry band of misfits: now with more waiting around for something to happen. Riveting.

***Scene Break***

Turns out that waiting around for something to happen is just as boring as you expect it to be. I could have probably solved several world crisises in the time I spent sitting here staring at the ceiling. Like how to truly stop rage quitters, or how to get people to be nice to each other on the internet. Important things like that. Maybe gone for a walk around town or something. But no, I chose to lie down here and stare at the ceiling. Truly I am the prime example of a go-getter. I jump at the call to go and do something. Other's should look upon me with envy and disdain.

"Josh, you in there?" Louise asks with a knock on the door.

"Door's open, come on in," I tell her. "What's up Missy?"

"I just wanted to talk a little," she says as she comes in and sits next to me on the bed. "You really think this will be alright?"

"I don't see why it wouldn't," I respond. "How is this any worse then the past few scenarios we've been in?"

"We're wanted criminals-"

"You're still hung up on that?"

"We're stuck in a city that wants us dead because of that-"

"Not the first time that's happened to me."

"The city is unfamiliar to us-"

"Yay maps!"

"And if we fail then an entire race will most likely be wiped out."

"I suppose asking to not fail would be too much?"

"How are you acting so calm about this?!" Louise yells at me. "This a huge problem! Can you take something seriously for once?"

I sigh, sit up and face Louise.

"Okay, believe it or not, I am taking this seriously. Very seriously. That's the problem here. You don't think I'm freaking out about this? This is some very serious shit, and if we fail then it's a much bigger deal then if we just failed to capture Fouquet, or failed to get a letter. The price of failure here is genocide. _Genocide._ It's a pretty heavy word. You know why I'm not busy freaking out and breaking down about it? The same reason you aren't, the same reason Emily isn't, hell, the same reason Josette isn't. We can't afford to screw this up. We can't afford screwing up due to panicking. Trust me, if I could panic then I would. Unfortunately, the situation is a little bit too fragile to risk something like that, so I need to be as calm as possible. You think I want to be responsible for genocide simply because I panicked at the wrong time? I don't, that's why I need to be the guy who's not taking it seriously. Otherwise I'd be beside myself with fear and panic. This is not a fun time, understand?"

Louise is stunned silent, and I don't blame her. I don't usually go on long rants like that, especially ones where I'm admitting to being terrified of the situation we're in. Have I ever admitted to that? I can't remember. Either way, it seems to have done something, because Louise nods.

"I understand," she says. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," I tell her. "You have nothing to be sorry about."

"No, I'm sorry for summoning you in the first place," she tells me. "If I hadn't done that then you never would have been forced into this situation in the first place."

"And if I hadn't been summoned I wouldn't have met you, so I consider it an equivalent exchange," I tell her. "So don't worry about it. We'll get this done as soon as possible, so there's nothing to worry about."

"Right," Louise says. "Thanks Josh."

"No problem."

"Mind if I stay a little longer?" Louise asks. "If it's not that much of a bother."

I didn't have a problem with it, so Louise wound up staying the night in my room. We chatted a bit longer, just small talk really. It helps keep your mind off the impending doom, after all.

***Author Notes***

Jocelyn: Sure taking you're sweet time with plot advancement, aren't you?

Uncreative: Pretty much.

Jocelyn: Fine by me. This way you get more time to figure things out.

Uncreative: Again, pretty much. I'm trying to get more chapters out more quickly, though that means the chapters are a bit shorter. Actually, to be fair, I don't think the time has anything to do with the length, but it's a nice excuse.

Jocelyn: As long as you don't mess with my story because of it, we'll be fine. I want screentime just as much as anyone!

Uncreative: I don't think that'll be a problem. Anyway, since this was a shorter, filler type chapter, I don't have much else to say about it. See you all next time.

Jocelyn: Bye everybody!


	23. Chapter 22

**Chapter 22: First Mission, Start!**

"Hey! Josh! Wake up already!" The shout from the other side of the door is accompanied by a relentless pounding. "Oi! Lazyass, drag your carcass out of the bed already!"

"Shut up," Louise mumbles, burying her head in the pillow, leaving me to deal with the situation.

That being the case, I get up and walk over to the door, opening it up just as Emily was about to start knocking again. As such, I get a nice solid blow to the face.

"Ah! Sorry Josh!" Emily says, drawing back a few steps. "Sorry."

"It's fine, I've been hit by worse from things far stronger then my maid," I tell her. "So what's the urgent matter?"

"I've got our first order of business all ready!" Emily declares. "First mission, all ready to go!"

"What are you yapping about now maid?" Louise asks, still not quite awake. "What's this about missions?"

"Come on down to the living room and I'll tell you, we're having a meeting!" Emily declares. "Don't be late, this is super important, got it?"

"Got it," me and Louise simultaneously agree.

"Awesome," Emily says with a smile before turning and running off.

"The maid confuses me sometimes," Louise says. "She couldn't just say that she's calling a meeting, she has to keep yelling at us and babbling about missions?"

"I'm more concerned that she's apparently desensitized," I reply.

"What do you mean?" Louise asks.

"She didn't make a single comment about your attire," I explain to her.

Louise looks down and notices she's only wearing her camisole and panties and tries to cover up. A little late for that, sweetheart, Emily's probably already thinking up another porn story in her head. Not my fault you can only sleep in either nightdress only or underwear only. I didn't give you your sleepwear psychosis. Anyway, let's get ready for the meeting, this sounds like fun.

After Louise got dressed we headed for the living room where Josette and Emily were already sitting at the table.

"Alright, everyone's here!" Emily says. "Okay, there's been a bit of discussion about what our first move should be now that we're wanted criminals. I've been poking around a bit and I think I've nailed our first order of business."

"And what might that be?" I ask.

"While we don't have a plan in mind for actually dealing with the Pope, we need to gain a little bit more information on the situation. That being the goal, I've come up with three different missions to be split amongst the four of us. Josh, I need you to go the the Pope's monastery slash church and scope it out. Since he knows we've escaped, he probably expects us to make an assault on him at some point, so he's probably increased security around there. As such, I want you to go out there and check it out. I don't know if we will be making some moves on that place, we need to know what it's like ahead of time."

"That sounds pretty good," I say. "Makes sense. Why am I going in alone?"

"You're pretty damn agile, right?" Emily asks me. "If you're noticed, it'd be easier to escape if you're solo then if you're trailing along with Louise or Josette with you."

"I'm not that big of a hindrance," Louise complains.

"That's why you and Josette get your own mission too," Emily tells them. "See, while Josh is busy scoping at the pope's place, you and Josette are going to walk around the city and see what, if anything, the pope has set up in terms of around the city security. He probably has some security people walking around searching for us, and it'd be nice if you two could get some eyes on what he's got."

"So we're just walking around and keeping an eye out for guards?" Louise asks.

"That sounds easy," Josette says. "I like that."

"It's still pretty dangerous," Emily warns them. "You have to be careful not to get noticed by the guards. There could be some trouble."

"All right then, what's your job?" I ask. "Please tell me it's more then just 'sit here with an ear to the ground.'"

"Close! … Actually, no, not really," Emily says. "See, I'm going to be roaming around town myself, but for a different reason then Louise and Josette. I'm going to ask around and see what public opinion on this situation is."

"Why do we need public opinion?" Josette asks.

"If the public has a good opinion of us, say they think we were wrongly accused, or hated the Pope and side with us or thing like that, then they're more likely to support us," Emily explains. "If they like us they're more likely to help us out. I don't know if that help is as small as simply not reporting us to a local guard or possibly rallying for us and stuff like that, but every little bit helps. Since I've got the most information available to me, I'll be the one going around trying to turn as many people to our side as possible."

I'm not entirely certain how much the people liking us will help us out when we're basically terrorists, but I'll take the information brokers words on this one, she probably knows more about it then I do.

"Okay, so before we go does anyone have any questions about anything whatsoever?" Emily asks. There's a brief silence during which Emily smiles. "Alright everyone, let's head on out!"

***Scene Break***

So… Just scope out the place, right? Shouldn't be too hard. Probably. First I need to find it again. I'm still new to this city so I have a pretty rough time getting around. It's still not that hard, I think. It wouldn't be that bad to ask someone for directions, right?

"Excuse me Miss," I say as I approach a random citizen. "Would you perhaps know where the Pope's Monastery is? I'm new here and wished to see it."

"Sir, it's called a Church, not a monastery." _Whatever. Same thing._ "The Church was actually built in the center of town, so if you go that way," she says pointing in a direction, "you should be able to find it."

"Really? That's useful knowledge. Thank you very much," I say with a bow before turning to walk off.

"Wait." _Shit._ "Sir, have I perhaps seen you around before?"

"I've never met you in my entire life," I tell her the truth.

"No, I'm pretty sure I've seen you before," the girl says. … Woman? She looks around my age. Let's stick with girl. Speaking of the girl, she looks a little off to the side, and I follow her gaze. … Oh, they got wanted posters up already. These people work fast! I mean damn everything, they've got this system down!

"I suppose that wouldn't be you, the mistake has been made before and it's all a misunderstanding?" the girl asks.

"Would you believe me if I said I was innocent?" I ask as I pull the wanted poster off the wall and crumple it up. Won't be needing that after all. "I mean, I was in the same room as the man, and a gun was fired, but I swear I didn't fire it. It's all a setup, you know?"

"I believe you."

"I expected that so now… Wait. Excuse me?" I ask.

"I believe you," the girl says again. "I don't think you'd do something like that."

"… You're evidence for this? Don't get me wrong, I'm glad we're on the same page here, I'm just very confused."

"You've made a name for yourself," the girl tells me. "Fought an army during the Albion war," _Louise did most of the work._ "And when you arrived in that metal contraption to destroy the metal giants," _Tabitha did all the aiming, I just drove the damn future tank._ "Simply gaining recognition for being a commoner who's come as far as he has. Quite a few people know of you."

… Shit, I'm famous. Damn it, that's pretty much exactly what I've been trying to avoid my entire time here. And now it's paying off. How weird.

"Believe me," the girl says. "If most of the people here saw you on the street, not a single one would report you. They either have too much respect for you, or are scared of what you'd do."

"I'm not scary!" I exclaim. "What the hell's with them?"

"You fought an army and won and you destroyed five giants that the Saint of Aquellia couldn't even scratch, you should be more surprised if people didn't take notice of that."

"Damn everything," I say in response. "Thought if I may, any particular reason you're telling me all this? They could probably easily arrest your for 'consorting with a wanted criminal' or something like that."

"I thought you would like to know that yes, you have other people on your side," the girl tells me. "It's not just you, your master and your… maid? Is that what that says?"

"Me, master and maid, that's correct," I confirm.

"Remember that you three have other allies," the girl tells me. "We might not be able to do much, but there are a lot of us who think this whole situation is stupid."

Glad I'm not the only one. This entire thread of thought is a cluster of bull and shit with the Pope at the center. What an asshole.

"Thank you Miss, I'll make sure to keep in mind that people are willing to help," I reply. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have a stakeout to attend. Information doesn't gather itself."

"Best of luck Mr. Hero, I'm rooting for you," she says with a smile.

See, Mr. Hero just make me feel weird. … I probably can't get her to say it again. I guess I'll just go back and start gathering that info I was supposed too.

***Scene Break***

Yep. Lady didn't lie, this looks like the church of despair and stupid hats. I probably should take a look at the inside, but that's completely impossible and stupidly dangerous. That combination of terms usually makes me more likely to try something, but in this case I should really be playing it safe. Let's stick with simply checking what they've got patrolling the outside. That should be about all we need.

Okay, looks like they've got a few guards walking around the outside near the front door. There's only two, but they're covering each other pretty well so we'd probably need a distraction of some kind to get in through there. The building itself has a few towers, and it looks like there's a few guards standing there as well. That gives them a pretty good view it looks like, that could be a problem. Let's check around the building, see if there's anything else around here of note.

"And what, may I ask, are you doing?"

"Would you believe me if I said I was bringing some chocolates as an apology?" I ask as I turn around and see Catherine pointing her wand at me.

"I don't see any chocolates," she points out.

"Fair point," I say, raising my hands above my head. "So then would you believe me if I said I came in peace and mean not trouble?"

"Didn't you say something like that when you first arrived to 'have a little chat' with His Holiness?" Catherine asks.

"Okay, that was complete truth, I didn't go in there with anything in mind other then getting that chat done with as soon as possible so I can go home. Your Pope's kind of a dick about things though, so now we're here."

"Is that all you have to say for yourself?" Catherine asks. "You tried to kill him because you don't agree with him."

"No see, I don't agree with him so he framed me for trying to kill him… Not that you're going to believe me."

"Obviously," Catherine says. "Why should I trust the words of a common assassin over the word of His Holiness?"

"Because… Hey, what's that?!"

"Huh?"

While she's distracted, I turn and run off. That shouldn't have worked, but the fact that it did makes me want to laugh my ass off. Unfortunately I don't have time for that, as I know have Catherine and her merry band of guards right on my ass. Shit, okay, counting Catherine there's about five of them. That's not that many. I just need to out run the- SHIT! I hit the ground, roll and get back to my feet.

"Using magic's unfair!" I call back to Catherine. "You don't see me tossing boulders at you!"

"If you would simply give up and let us arrest you we wouldn't need to to do this!" she yells back.

What a bitch! Okay, let's see if I can shake them vertically. I target a nearby being and launch myself at it. After colliding with a few choice handholds, I climb up to the roof. The several story high roof. Why are buildings so tall in this place? It takes forever just to get to the top! Of course I can't just rest now that I'm up here, and start running again, leaping across a few rooftops in the process. I try to put as many buildings between me and my pursuers as I can. Rock! In my attempt to roll and dodge the rock, I nearly fall right off. I manage to just barely grab the roof and hoist myself back up once the rock passes overhead. On that same roof was Catherine minus her guard troop.

"How the hell did you get up here?" I ask, panting from my little 'experience' right then. Turns out that nearly be crushed by a rock, followed by nearly falling off of an actually pretty high up roof can get the heart beating a bit, who would have thought?

"I'm an Earth mage, something like this is easy for me," she brags. "Now there's nowhere left for you to run, so come quietly. If you surrender and allow yourself to be tried before a court of law I can guarantee you won't get anything harsher then Life."

"Yeah, that's a pretty awful sounding bargain," I say as I look behind me to hopefully find something that can get me out of this. … Well, that _could_ work. I also _could_ break every bone in my body. Let's try it, live a little. "As such, I think I'll take this route. Arrivederci!"

With that, I allow myself to fall backwards off of the roof.

"W-wait!" Catherine lunges forward to try and grab me, but fails and I get to sail through the air. That is, until the fall was broken by a few piles of hay.

I sit up and start brushing the hay off of myself, laughing all the while. Who would have thought? Hay saves lives. I'd like to see that as the next newspaper headline. Anyway, now that I'm away from her it looks like I can rest a li-

"He came this way!"

"You sure?"

Damn everything. Screw it. If hay can work, then anything can. That belief process in mind, I stand up, walk over to a bench and sit between two people. With all three of us wearing hoods we could probably form a brotherhood or something. A brother-hood. Hoods. Hmm. Pun not intended. Either way, I lower my head so they can't see my face and pretend to have just fallen asleep. The guards that decided to follow me decide they aren't having any of that and drop by my bench.

"Excuse me, have any of you three seen the wanted criminal Joshua Springfield?" he asks. "He was seen in this area recently."

"I believe he ran off that way," the person to my right say, pointing in a completely arbitrary direction. "He was just here, so if you hurry you might catch him."

"We appreciate your assistance," the guard says. "Guards! He ran this way!"

The guard runs off, and his men follow after him. I throw a quick glance upwards and see Catherine working her way down to join them. I'll just wait here for the alarm to blow over, if you don't mind.

"Not even a thank you Mr. Hero? That's a little disappointing."

"You?" I ask, looking at my benchmate and seeing it's the girl from earlier. "What are you doing here?"

"You ran them right back to where we were talking."

I look around and note that yes, this is the exact same area I was in not too long ago. Oops.

"I figured I should give you a bit of a hand since I'm here," she says. "The guards here aren't the brightest, but they are persistent. Just lead them in some other direction and lay low, and you should be good easily. And like I said, public support helps. What if I was someone who wanted to turn you in?"

"Right. I think I get it."

And that's how I learned how important public perception is, and how I learned to never doubt Emily when she says anything ever. Now I know. Still, now that that's done, I think I can head back to the safehouse. For a first mission, I think that went pretty well!

***Author Notes***

Uncreative: Move along, nothing to see here. Just a brief mission to have them accomplish something.

Jocelyn: So I take it Louise and every else will get next chapter for their mission?

Uncreative: That's a safe bet. I don't quite know what I'm doing with it, but that's probably what will happen.

Jocelyn: Sounds cool to me!

Uncreative: By the way, the tutorial girl? The one that lectured Josh on the importance of public perception? She's never showing up again. I don't even really know why she's here in the first place. I suppose if this was an Assassin's Creed game she would be just that, the Tutorial Girl who lectures you on game mechanics and then politely leaves, never to show up again.

Jocelyn: I see, I see. Seems a bit weird to have a character for that purpose, but I'm not judging. Anything else?

Uncreative: Not really, we're done here. See you all next time.

Jocelyn: Later everyone!


	24. Bonus Chapter 2

**Author Notes:**

**WARNING: This chapter has heavy spoilers for both ****_The New Familiar_**** as well as ****_Empty Boundaries._**** Not the Nasuverse ****_Empty Boundaries_****, that's an awesome Movie/book series Go watch those instead, it's better then anything I can write, that's for sure.**

Now that the warning's out of the way, allow me to reaffirm it. Since this chapter takes place about a month after both stories, spoilers for both are present in this chapter. This was all a part of my experiment. I wanted to see if I could create a chapter that absolutely no one would read. As such, here were the ingredients. First: it's a bonus chapter. The last bonus chapter we had was the weird Charming Fairy Inn thing, so that'll probably scare a few people away from this. Side note: I actually do plan of redoing that bonus chapter from scratch at some point in the future. Second: This chapter is a crossover with another story of mine, Empty Boundaries. I dunno, maybe this'll encourage some people to read this, that's why it's an experiment. To try and neutralize that, I added number three. Thirdly: this chapter has all the aforementioned spoilers. The prospect of spoiling the story might scare some people away from this. Or not. Basically, I'm trying to make sure that I'm not the one that gets blamed if this spoils the story for anyone, I gave fair warning.

Anyway, onto the actual notes. They're siblings! Yes, Josh and Joc are siblings. … Seems kind of obvious when you think about it. I mean, they had practically the same name, they had a bit of a resemblance, they make the same jokes from time to time, I wasn't exactly trying to be subtle about it. That's kind of why this chapter got made. Make a Wish (a Familiar of Zero/Madoka Magica Valentine's Day one-shot I did, please check it out) went up last week, but I wanted something else to put up that day. I figured "hell, it's a holiday, let's do something fun." I _really_ wanted to get these two on screen together, you see. I probably could have done more with it then I did, but I didn't want the chapter to drag on too long. That can wait until they meet again. Assuming they do. They probably will.

Also, this chapter was an excuse to bring back a few characters I felt sorry for not including much of, namely Tiffania. I like her, I really do, I can just never remember to include her in anything ever. She didn't even wind up with much screen time here, and for that I apologize. Yunica showed up also, because I like writing her, and Marisa showed up too. For those who aren't aware, Marisa is a character from Empty Boundaries. I like writing her.

These author notes have dragged on long enough. I'd like to end this by saying that I swear to every god in existence, I'm getting this goddamn story finished by the end of March. Mark my words! We're done here. I'd say enjoy the chapter, but no one's going to read it. See you all next time.

**Bonus Chapter 2**

It was just another bright and sunny day in Glorious Albion, and I was suspicious as hell. Allllll hellllll.

"What's up with you?" My maid, Emily, asks. "You seem down. Come on, we're Tifa's guests, show a little smile!"

"I know, I know," I tell her. "I'm just getting a little antsy. A month ago we had that thing with the pope, two weeks ago there was that other thing-"

"Your fever dream you mean," Emily asks.

"It happened, I swear!" I tell her. "What, you have trouble believing it?"

"It's a little far-fetched," Emily says.

"Regardless, it's been way too peaceful," I tell her. "I'm expecting some kind of incident. It's worrying."

"What are you babbling about?" Louise asks, approaching us. "Tifa went out of her way to invite us over and this is what you do?"

"Right, right," I say. "Let's just go in for now."

Okay, I got a little ahead of myself, so let's back up a little. Like I said it's been about a month since we finished up our business with His Holiness, Pope Excommunicated the first. Two weeks ago I had another incident, but that doesn't matter. Especially since Louise and Emily keep trying to convince me that it didn't happen, but whatever. We come back to Halkgenia and visit every once in a while, and this time Tiffania invited us over since we hadn't talked for a while. Emily's been mentioning a surprise as well, but it hasn't popped up yet. Even though this should be a happy and relaxing time, I was too nervous. _Something_ was going to happen, I could feel it.

But that's then and this is now, and now we're having some damn good tea, courtesy of everyone's favorite half-elf.

"I'm so glad you could all come over," Tifa says with a smile while serving us some tea. "It really has been too long."

"A month, give or take," I reply. "How have things been with you?"

"They've been good," Tifania says. "We finally got the last child to a loving home, so my orphanage is now officially closed."

"Must have been tough saying goodbye to all the kids you raised," Emily says.

"Not really," Tifania says, taking a sip of her tea. "After all, they're going to proper, loving families that will take care of them better then I could. If I ever start to miss them then I'm allowed to visit them as well! That was part of the agreement, Miss Henrietta came up with it."

"That sounds like something Her Majesty would do," Louise adds with a nod.

"How nice of Anne," Emily says.

"It was incredibly nice of her," I agree. "I probably would have completely forgotten about something like that. May I please have some more tea?"

"Of course," Tifania says, pouring me another cup. I down the cup in one swig, stand up and stretch a bit.

"If you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a bit of a walk," I announce. "I'll be back in a minute, act like I'm still there."

"Don't worry, I'll provide sarcastic commentary in your place," Louise says.

"Thanks dear," I reply dryly. "What would we do without you?"

"The sarcasm quota would probably never be reached," Emily says.

"It doesn't seem like you three need to worry about a lack of sarcasm," Tifania says.

Great, we even got Tifa doing it now. Whatever, I'm walking. Try and walk these nerves off. It feels weird being nervous. It's not something I'm used to, probably because I'm not usually this paranoid. I don't know why, I'm just really expecting something to happen! I've got this weird feeling. That's why I kind of wanted to take this walk. Get some fresh air, maybe climb some trees, just work the paranoia off. Paranoia's your friend, but friends aren't always welcome you know. You know what else isn't welcome? This freaking sound I hear. I stop and strain my hearing, trying to get an idea of what that sound is. Sounds like... Screaming? Wai-

"AAAAAAAHHH!"

*THUD*

Ah, yes. Now I feel better. I quite enjoy my state as a landing pad. It makes me feel much better to know my place is directly underneath someone.

"Ah, what the hell?" The new voice says. "Maybe we should have tried with something else before we went straight to human testing."

"I hate to interrupt your monologue, but get off me!" I shout, trying to push the person off me. All I accomplish is rolling us over and getting us tangled up.

"Hey! Watch where you're grabbing!"

"Watch where _you're_ grabbing! I'm not the one who started this wrestling match!"

"I'm not the one who fell from the goddamn sky! I'm also not a landing pad!"

"Then you should have dodged!"

"You should have landed better!"

Eventually we manage to untangle from each other, and push away from each other. I extend my hidden blades and adopt a defensive stance. The person pulls out a knife and adopts a similar posture.

The newcomer was a girl, probably around my age. She was wearing a denim skirt, paired with a bright red, hooded jacket. She was also as flat as a cutting board. I mean, my god, I don't think _Louise _is that flat! Devil's advocate, the jacket could be hiding what little she has. She had brownish eyes that you could see behind her glasses, and her shoulder length brown hair was tied in a ponytail. ... It looks pretty good. We stare each other down for a few more seconds, daring the other to make the first move. After a few seconds, the girl's eyes widen in surprise, and her stance falters.

"... Josh? Is that you?"

Excuse me?

"That's my name, have we met before?" I ask.

"Josh, it's me!" The girl says, putting the knife away in her jacket pocket. "It's me, Jocelyn!"

"J-Jocelyn? But... But you're supposed to be..."

"Big bro!" She cries in happiness, wrapping her arms around me. "I don't know or care how, I'm far too happy to question anything right now!"

"Josh, what happened?" Louse cries as she and the gang finally arrive. "We heard a crash and... Josh. Care to explain?"

"I know what it looks like," I tell her.

"It probably looks like you're being hugged by some random girl they've never met before, doesn't it?" The girl... No, Jocelyn (it still feels weird saying that name) says, still hugging me.

"That's what it looks like, yes," Emily says. "Mind letting go of him so we can have a little chat?"

"Don't wanna," Jocelyn says. "Gimme a moment. It hasn't sunk in yet. ... Okay, I think I'm good."

Jocelyn let's go of me and turns to the other three. She bows slightly, then curtsies for good measure. She opens her mouth to speak, then sees Louise, and stops in surprise. She seems to realize something though, because she nods her head.

"So that's how it is," she mutters to herself. "Ah, sorry. I've delayed long enough, haven't I? Ahem. Nice to meet you all. My name is Jocelyn Alexandra Springfield. I'm Josh's twin little sister."

It suddenly occurred to me that my earlier thought process about her chest is suddenly far more awkward in hindsight.

"WHAT?!"

The effect is immediate, and hilarious. Louise and Emily nearly fall over from shock but settle for simply babbling incoherently. Tifa merely seems surprised.

"Well yeah, I guess it's a bit weird," Jocelyn admits, scratching the back of her head. "Normally I only introduce myself with 'Jocelyn,' though I have started going with 'Jocelyn Springfield' recently. Still weird introducing myself with my middle name as well, but I figure it's a special occasion, so why not?"

"I was focused on twin little sister," I say. "One or the other sis, not both."

"They're both accurate," she complains. "You're older by a few minutes, aren't you? Or is that something that's different here?"

"Joshua, you never mentioned you had a sister," Tifa says, ignoring that little tangent.

"It didn't come up," I say with a shrug.

"Didn't come up?!" Louise says. "That's a kind of big thing to simply not bring up!"

"And we've been to your house, I certainly didn't see any evidence that such a creature existed!" Emily exclaims.

"Creature?" Jocelyn asks. "So now I'm Sasquatch?"

"I was thinking the Loch Ness Monster," I reply. "Loch Ness Monster is more interesting."

"And non-existent. As for your question," Jocelyn says, turning back to them. "If it's anything like what my family did, we didn't exactly hold on to anything after all that happened."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Emily asks.

"Should you tell them or should I?" I ask her.

"I got this Big Bro," Jocelyn says. "See, if events here were anything like what I went through when I was a kid, then I'm dead."

"… Eh?" Louise, Emily and Tifania have fully synchronized.

"You see," Jocelyn begins, "Back when we were just kids, around ten years old, I was killed. For me it was reverse, but that's all weird alternate timeline stuff."

"You… were killed," Louise states.

"Yep, cut down in cold blood," Jocelyn confirms. "… Um… Is this alright, Big Bro?"

"What do you mean?"

"Talking about it isn't going to be a problem or anything?" Jocelyn asks. "I know I had a pretty big problem with the memories for a while so…"

"Hey, you're talking," I tell her. "Talk about as much as you want, it won't bother me. I dealt with that whole PTSD thing like, two weeks ago."

"You left that part out of your story," Emily says.

"It didn't seem important," I say with a shrug. "I left out a few details that I figured would be better left unsaid. Personal privacy issues concerning those involved and all that."

"Well, it makes things easier," Jocelyn says. "I recently got past it myself, but that's unrelated. So yeah, that thing happened and one of us died. My family didn't exactly keep many memories of Big Bro around after that."

"I see. What a story," Tifania says. "Though if you're dead, then what are you doing here?"

"The Louise I know kind of screwed up," Jocelyn admits sheepishly.

"The Louise that you know?" Louise asks. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Alternate timelines, different worlds, yadda yadda yadda," Jocelyn says, waving her hand to try and dismiss it. "It's a bunch of stupid stuff that makes my head hurt and I resent the people who filled me in on it."

"Alternate… what?" Emily seems confused.

"Point is, my Louise recently got this bitchin' world door spell and we were trying it out to see if it could get me back to Earth," Jocelyn says. "We screwed up, and now I'm here. She'll probably try again after a rest and I get to go home. Mind if I rest here for a bit in the meantime? I don't think moving too far away from where I landed would help me."

"Of course you can stay for a bit," Tifa says with a smile.

"No objections here," Emily says.

"I'm still a little suspicious, I'll admit, but I'm okay with you staying for a bit," Louise says.

"… Nah, get out," I say dryly.

"Bitch, I'll cut you," she says, pulling the knife out of her pocket. "Stabby, stabby and all that good stuff."

"Well, when you word it like that, I guess it's okay," I reply, taking a few steps back.

"Kickass," she says, putting the knife away.

***Scene Break***

And that's how we all wound up sitting around an old wooden table drinking tea with my dead sister. I know I said repeatedly that I was expecting something to happen, but this wasn't it. I was expecting some kind of new, evil bad guy or something. This was an unexpected, though certainly not an unwelcome surprise. I was more then content to simply sit back and enjoy the show. Louise and Emily however seemed more on edge. Makes sense, I guess. They certainly never heard of Jocelyn (I didn't tell them obviously, but honestly I didn't even know about her until around two weeks ago) so it makes sense that they'd be suspicious.

"I'm still not convinced," Louise says. "I mean, there's a bit of a resemblance-"

"Twins, remember?" Jocelyn says, gesturing to her face, then to mine.

"But that could easily be a coincidence," Louise finishes.

"It's not even really that big a resemblance," Emily notes. "I mean, aren't twins supposed to look alike? Fraternal twins exist and all that but still, I thought there'd be a bit more there."

"Well obviously we can't be identical twins," I say.

"Yeah, he's a boy and I'm a girl so that option gets shot out a cannon," Jocelyn adds.

"Could have fooled me with that chest," Emily snarks under her breath. Unfortunately, Jocelyn picked it up.

"Excuse me? You have a problem?" Jocelyn asks, standing up to look down upon Emily. "I'll have you know that FLAT IS JUSTICE! FLAT CHESTS ARE A STATUS SYMBOL AND I WILL NOT BE INSULTED BY THE LIKES OF PEOPLE LIKE YOU!"

"Yeah, what the hell, Maid?" Louise asks, smirking as she jumps on the "let's annoy Emily" bandwagon. "Don't you know it's rude to point out a girl's chest size? Shame on you, I thought you had better manners then that. There's nothing wrong with lacking a little."

_Forget 'a little' neither of you have anything._

Ah, that was Emily's thought process. I can't read minds, but it's pretty obvious that that's exactly what was going through her mind.

"It's not my fault mom didn't have anything to pass down to me," Jocelyn pouts, sinking back down into her chair. "It's all genetics. Stupid genetics."

"R-right," Emily says. "I a-apologize, please forgive me for bringing it up."

"It's fine," Jocelyn says. "It's just something that bugs me. Everyone always ranting about 'Oh, mine are bigger then yours,' or 'oh, you're so flat.' Not like it matters at all."

"Anyway, is there anyway we can without a doubt confirm that you're who we think you are?" Emily asks. "I mean, just to eliminate any doubt. I know we made fun of Josh earlier for being so paranoid, but honestly we're kind of in the same boat."

"I mean, to be fair, that thing two weeks ago may or may not have involved something claiming to be you," I tell Jocelyn.

"Yeah, I had an run in with an illusion you as well," Jocelyn says. "It was really unnerving. Okay, how do we test that I'm me and Joshua is actually Big Bro?"

"It certainly seems like you've all had some adventures," Tifa notes. "I wish I could have some adventures myself."

"It's not all it's cracked up to be," Jocelyn says. "It's still fun at times, though."

"How about we ask a few questions?" Louise asks Emily. "See if they're similar at all, you know?"

"I like it, it I like it. How many questions?"

"Um… Five?" Louise asks. "Yeah, five. Five sounds like a good number.

"First question then," Emily says, holding up one finger. "Top 3 movies, in no order."

""Die Hard, Army of Darkness and Pacific Rim.""

"Second, best game of all time?"

""You bastard! You're making me choose?""

...

""Pass?""

"This isn't Fast Money. Whatever, we'll come back to that one then. Third, greatest song ever made?"

"" All Star by Smash Mouth, obviously.""

"Smartasses. Fourthly, best superhero?"

""Thor, Mother****er, Thor!""

"Iron Man's a close second," I add.

"Oh, that goes without saying," Jocelyn affirms.

"Finally, best Madoka Magica pairing?"

"Wait that question seems a bit differe-"

""Kyoko/Harem. Come on, that barely even qualifies as a question.""

"Oooookay," Emily seems a little spooked out. "Screw twins, you two could pass as freaking opposite sex clones with how in-sync you are."

"Are we assuming that's a possibility now?" Jocelyn asks. "I'm pretty sure I wasn't grown in a lab."

"Don't worry Joc," I tell her. "I'm pretty sure we haven't hit that level of paranoia yet. You okay? You flinched for some reason."

"Yeah, yeah," she says. "Not used to hearing that from you. It's been a while, you know."

"Seven years, so you said," Emily says.

"Something like that," Jocelyn says. "God, it really has been that long, hasn't it?"

"So, have our strains of paranoia been successfully been purged from our systems?" I ask.

"I think so," Louise says. "It's still really hard to believe, but I can't see any reason not too."

"Well Big Bro is from a different world then you, why's it hard to believe I'm from a different world then him?" Jocelyn reasons.

"Seems good enough to me," Emily says. "Just in time too, I think the surprise should be arriving soon."

"Yeah, you mentioned that. Can I get a hint?" I ask.

Before anyone can respond, I'm tackled from behind and hit the floor with a horrible thud. And yet somehow I'm on my back with a crap ton of pain shooting through my spine. PAIN. PAIN. PA- oh hi Yunica, how've you been?

"What are you doing here Yuca?" I ask as I give the little girl a pat on the head.

"Big sis Emi called last week," Yunica explains. "She said that big bro and everyone would be visiting and we could come by and visit!"

"Haven't seen her in a while, you know?" Emily asks. "I thought you might have liked to see her again."

"Certainly a surprise," I say, managing to worm my way into a sitting position. Yunica refuses to let go of me, so that makes things interesting.

"Who's the kid?" Jocelyn asks. "Is she-"

"She's not mine if you're wondering. We're friends," I say. "Yunica, be a dear and introduce yourself."

"Got it, big bro!" Yunica says, finally letting go of me. She stands up and turns to Jocelyn and gives a curtsey. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Miss. My name is Yunica, and I'm my Big Brother's little sister!"

"Self titled, I take it?" Jocelyn asks.

"She grew rather attached to him for one reason or another," Louise confirms.

"Nice to meet you Yunica, I'm Jocelyn. I'm-"

"Ah! You're big bro's real sister, aren't you?" Yunica asks.

"Eh, how'd you know that?" I ask.

"Even we didn't know," Louise says.

"… Really?" Yunica asks. "They look so alike though."

"You're kidding me," Louise says.

"Hmhm, You always were a bright one, Yunica," Tifa adds.

"It's a pleasure to meet you Big Sis," Yunica says.

"No need to be so formal, we just met," Jocelyn says.

"Yeah, who taught you to be that formal anyway?" I ask. "I never saw you act that way back when I stayed at the orphanage way back when."

"I thought that my little sister could use a little more flair."

We turn to the new voice and see a little, blonde, five year old walk in, carrying a stuffed rabbit in her arms. I don't know her but Jocelyn certainly seems to recognize her if the widened eyes are any indication.

"Marisa, I'm not the little sister!" Yunica declares, running up to the new girl. "I'm seven! I'm two years older then you!"

"Yet you act two years younger. Don't worry little sis, I still love you," Maris says, patting Yunica's head.

"I'm not the little sister," Yunica pouts, looking close to tears. "I'm two years older then you! Two!"

"Who's the kid?" I ask. "Is she-"

"Pardon my manners," Marisa says. "I'm Yunica's sister. She was welcomed into our family once we adopted her not that long ago."

"I see," I reply. "That makes sense."

"Miss Marisa, would you like some tea?" Tifa asks. "I can go and prepare some if you would like."

"That would be nice, thank you Miss Tiffania," Marisa says, casting a smile at the half-elf. Tifa responds with a smile of her own and heads off to the kitchen.

"You say your name's Marisa?" Jocelyn asks.

"Yes, why?" Marisa asks, tilting her head to the side.

"Can... Can I give you a hug?"

"Eh?" Me, Louise, and Emily have reached full synchronization.

"I don't see why not," Marisa says with a smile.

Fast as lightning, Jocelyn teleports over to Marisa, picks her up, holds her close to her flat chest and starts spinning her around.

"Oh my god, you're soooo cute!" Jocelyn declares. "I want to take home my own Chibi Marisa!"

"I'm sorry miss, but I'm already taken," Marisa says, still spinning. "You're welcome to take Yunica though."

"Hey! The only one allowed to take me home is big br- I mean absolutely not!" Yunica switches gears.

"Ufufu, I'm kidding of course," Marisa says. "Please forgive me, sis."

"Mmmmmm," Yunica pouts some more. "Fine. As the big sister, it's my job to be a role model. I'll forgive you this time."

"Ahahahaha!" Jocelyn still seams to be having the time of her life. Eventually she settles down and puts Marisa back down on the floor. "Sorry, sorry. I'm good. She reminded me of someone I knew once."

"Oh. Is this person perhaps someone you have a habit of picking up and spinning around?" Marisa asks. "Perhaps you share some intimate relationship where spinning each around like a wheel is a sign of affection?"

... What six year old talks like this? She sounds like she's like twenty times older. I mean seriously-

"H-hey! Watch it!" I yell at Marisa, snatching my hidden blades back from her grasp.

"You caught that?" she seems surprised. "You're pretty good, mister."

"Why are you yelling at the five year old?" Emily asks.

"The little girl's a thief, that's why!" I exclaim.

"Guilty as charged," Marisa says with a smile. "It's a bad habit. I'm rather impressed you noticed though. I think you might be the first. Very few people suspect the small, female child, you know."

… Her smile is creepy. Little girls smiling and saying that no one would ever suspect them is an awful combination. Reaaaaaly creepy.

"Be that as it may, don't do it again," I tell her, though I'm not sure if I'm talking about the stealing or the smile and admission combo.

"You never know when you might be stealing something dangerous. Like a knife or something," Jocelyn adds.

"I promise to not steal anything else for… another five minutes? Does that sound good?" Marisa asks.

"No that is not good!" Yunica says. "Mama said not to steal anything, remember?"

"It's fine as long as they don't notice though, isn't it?" Marisa asks.

"Eep!"

"Oh dear, I've been found out," Marisa says. "Such a shame."

"Emily, what's up?" Jocelyn asks.

"How did you even… I mean… That's not possible!" Emily says, her face red and her hands pressed to her skirt in defense.

"Just because you don't notice something happening doesn't make it impossible," Marisa says, still smiling.

"Marisa, whatever you took you better give back!" Yunica says.

"NO!" Emily says, pressing into her skirt harder in response. "That's okay. I'll ask for them back later."

Them? What'd Marisa take anyway? I don't get it. I'm very confused.

"Well, that'd be a touch difficult," Marisa says. "They might get mistaken for another pair."

"Another pair?" Jocelyn asks? "What do you mean?"

"Ah!"

"Louise, you too?" I ask. "What got stolen?"

"Don't ask," Louise says, her hands pressed to her sides as if glued together. "Just don't. Please."

"I suppose this should serve as a public service announcement to the rest of you?" Marisa says.

For reasons beyond my comprehension, Yunica and Jocelyn both pat their skirts. Yunica eeps in surprise and her face turns red, while Jocelyn simply seems amused.

"You are _good,_ young lady, I'll give you that," Jocelyn says. "Very impressive."

"I try," Marisa says, smiling some more.

"So can I have them back? The window's are open and it's a little breezy," Jocelyn says.

"Maybe a little later," Marisa replies.

At that moment Tifa came back with everyone's tea, and small talk commenced. Yuca and Marisa's mom even joined us for that time. She seems nice. Not sure why she wasn't in here with her kids from the beginning, but whatever. Emily tells me she was talking with some big shot about big ambassador things while Yuca and Marisa were in here, but whatever. I don't pry into other people's backstories unless they're super interesting. This one woman whose name I don't even know isn't one of those people. Eventually though, they had to return from whence they came, and after bidding them adieu, Yunica, Marisa and their mother all headed out, though not before Marisa gave something back to everyone. I didn't get to see what it was because I got shooed out immediately. Not sure what that was about, but whatever. Eventually I was allowed back in and we all continued our tea, uninterrupted.

"So, didja like the the surprise?" Emily asks.

"I hated it," Louise says. "No child of mine will become a kleptomaniac like that. Stealing peoples… Just no."

"Hey, there are a variety of other precious things that she could have taken, yet didn't," Jocelyn says. "I'd say that's a pretty good kid. I'm biased as hell though since I was pretty close to the Marisa I knew."

"It certainly was surprising," I say, ignoring Louise and Joc. "I should hang out with Yuca some more, I like her. She's a nice kid. Thanks for inviting her, Emi."

"No problemo boss," Emily says.

"She seems like a good kid, I agree," Jocelyn adds her two cents. "What'd you do to get her so attached to you? She was practically attached to you by the hip the whole time. With her 'big bro' talk and all that stuff."

"What, don't tell me you're jealous of a seven year old," Louise says.

"Why would I?" Jocelyn asks, sounding legitimately confused. "So someone else calls him 'Big Bro,' what's the big deal?"

"That reminds me!" Emily says. "I almost forgot to say how disappointed I am in you two!"

""What'd I do?"" me and Joc ask simultaneously.

"Come on! There's a reunion several years in the making of someone you saw died and this is how you two act?" Emily asks. "There should be tears, embraces, a tearful reunion like this has a negative percent chance of happening and yet here it is and you two act like it's nothing out of the ordinary?! It kind of pisses me off!"

"I don't get it," I say.

"Me either," Jocelyn asks. "Are you saying you'd prefer it if I hugged big bro and started crying and all that?"

"I'd prefer it if you did something!" Emily says. "This is a huge thing and you're acting like it's just another Thursday afternoon!"

"I'm pretty sure it's a Wednesday, actually," I correct.

"Irregardless!" Emily interrupts. "At least try to act like this is something huge!"

Me and Jocelyn exchange glances, then shrug.

"Oh brother, dearest brother, how I have missed you all these years," Jocelyn says in the flattest monotone imaginable.

"I feel the same, most beloved sister. Truly this is a moment for the ages, I have missed you so much," I reply in an equally flat tone.

"If only we were immortal, that we could spend eternity together, yet all we can do is spend the rest of our lives together."

"Let us never separate for the rest of our unfortunately short lifespans."

"I hate both of you," Emily says. "Both of you. Really. Hate. Complete loathing."

"Don't be so sore," Louise says. "You brought it upon yourself."

"They have their own way of expressing how happy they are to see each other," Tifa says. "Considering how rarely this type of thing occurs, I'm still happy for them, no matter their reaction."

Jocelyn opens her mouth to say something, but is cut off when a giant green portal opens up over the coffee table.

"And you're sure this is right?"

"Yes! It's right where I opened the portal last time!"

"Hey! Anne and Louise! What's going on?" Jocelyn asks, standing up and addressing the people you can see in the portal.

"Jocelyn!" the other Louise cries.

"Thank the Founder you're okay," the other one, apparently Anne, says. "Sorry it took so long, but Louise has been asleep since she cast the first spell. We could have gotten you back sooner, but she decided to sleep in, as she always does."

"Void spells would take a lot out of anyone!" the other Louise complains. She pauses when she notices me. I give a wave.

"Hi there."

"Jocelyn, who's he?" the other Louise asks.

"Hold up!" Emily says. "If we're going to do this we're getting everyone introduced."

Emily grabs my Louise and Tiffania by the arm and drags them over to me and Jocelyn's side of the coffee table. The other Louise and Anne seem surprised at the sudden party increase.

"Louise, why are you over there when you're right here?" Anne asks the other Louise. "Has something gone horribly, horribly wrong? Again?"

"Um… Hi, me," my Louise says. "Nice to meet me."

"Same, I think," the other Louise says. "This is a little surreal."

"Nice to meet you, citizens of the other world!" Emily says, starting introductions. "My name is Emily Kimberly Pilgrim, this is Tiffania Westwood, you're already familiar with Mistress Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière."

"Nice to meet you two, I'm Joshua Springfield," I introduce myself before Emily can.

"Eh? Springfield?" the other Louise seems to register familiarity with the name. "So-"

"I'm Joc's brother, it's a pleasure to meet you," I say with a bow for courtesy.

They seems surprised again. I comprehend. This has been a weird day for everyone, hasn't it? Anne recovers her composure first.

"A pleasure to meet you. I am Annette de Tristain, queen of Tristain. I'd let Louise here introduce herself, but that's pointless."

"H-hey! What do you mean pointless?" Other Louise asks.

"They already know you," Annette points out. "Why would you need to introduce yourself when you're already there?"

"… I still wanted to introduce myself," Other Louise grumbles. "Anyway, we've got the portal back open so you can come back, okay Jocelyn?"

"And please don't tell me that it's been years in your perspective and you've decided to stay there," Annette says. "That's something I'd really rather not deal with."

"Nah, it hasn't been long at all," Jocelyn assures them. "Gimme a bit to say goodbye and we can get going."

"Don't take too long. Louise'll pass out from the stress any nanosecond now," Annette warns dryly.

"I'm not that weak!" Louise says. "I can easily keep this open for like an hour!"

"Then we won't keep you," Emily says, dragging Louise and Tifa asks. "Have fun you two!"

And so they vanished, leaving me alone with a bunch of people I didn't even know could have existed until today. Weird day.

"She left," I note.

"Took off like a bat out of hell," Jocelyn affirms. "You know some odd people."

"And you don't?"

"Fair point," Jocelyn concedes. "So, I suppose this is goodbye?"

"Yep," I tell her. "Nice seeing you again Jocelyn."

"Yeah, it was nice. Um…"

Jocelyn embraces me again. I'm briefly surprised, but I recover quickly and return the hug.

"I missed you," she tells me. "Really. You have no idea how happy today has made me."

"I think I might, actually," I tell her. "I really enjoyed today also."

"I kind of wish it lasted longer," Jocelyn tells me. "There's a lot more I want to talk about with you."

*chu*

"Eh?"

"Though I suppose that doesn't matter anymore, does it?" Jocelyn asks, letting go and stepping away from me, a sad smile on her face. "Good bye big bro. I love you."

"Love you too Joc. See you around?"

She shoots me one last smile before turning around and hopping into the portal. The portal closes behind her, leaving behind nothing but empty space. My hand briefly goes to my cheek, then I shake my head and dismiss it. The past is past, I suppose. No point in worrying about it any longer. I sigh and slump down into the couch. Emily, Louise and Tifa come back in not much later.

"So, your sister went back to her world?" Louise asks.

"Seems like it," I say.

"Any chance of a visit in the future?" Emily asks.

"Probably not. She only dropped by due to a screw up, remember?"

"Was it at least nice to be able to see your sister again?" Tifa asks.

"… Yeah. It was," I say with a smile. "It was really nice to see her. I feel a lot better then I did this morning."

"So, no more paranoia?" Emily asks.

"You're not going to start being that weird again, are you?" Tifa asks.

"I dunno," I shrug. "We'll see what's up in another two weeks."

With that said, Tifa poured us all a little more tea. My mind played over the events of the past day. What a weird day. Weird, but certainly not unwelcome. I wouldn't mind more days like this.


	25. Chapter 23

**Chapter 23: Almost There!**

After that whole thing with everything happening at once and nearly dying like twice (boulder to the head and jumping off a building into a pile of hay), I decided I was about done for the day and headed back to the safe house. Subverting all expectations, I was the first one back. I only panicked for about three seconds before realizing that it is possible for me to arrive first and not have that mean that everyone else has been captured and killed. I decided to sit at the living room table and wait for the others. Not like I had anything better to do. Considering I more or less ditched my mission once I got caught, it isn't really surprising that I'm the first one back, now that I think about it. Still sucks. Sucks. Sucks. … I'm going to take a nap or som-

"Hey! When'd you get back?" Emily asks, walking in through the front door and ruining all my plans forever. Damn you, maid.

"Too long ago," I say. "Or was it? Might have been a few minutes ago. I lost track of time far too easily when I get really bored. I can't tell if it's been hours or minutes."

"I see," Emily says. "I actually don't, but I'm saying that to make you feel better about yourself."

Thank you. Thank you so much Emily. Your words of comfort are second to none. How beautiful.

"So how'd your little scouting party work out?" I ask her. "Get any good opinions?"

"There's a pretty even split," Emily says. "About half the people I asked think that we're being wrongly accused, and the other half thinks that we're basically Satan. How dare we try to kill his holiness who has done no wrong! Clearly we were just trying into people's good graces so no one would suspect us when we killed the pope."

"Clearly."

"And how'd your excursion go?" Emily asks. "Run into anything fun?"

"Well, I got discovered, ran away from a bunch of guards, nearly got my head taken off by a giant-ass boulder, jumped off a building and evaded detection by pulling my hood over my head and sitting on a bench."

"That's cool. All I did was kick a guy in the stomach," Emily says. "Find anything important out about the pope's house?"

"Well, there's a crap ton of security, that's for sure," I tell her. "They have guards stationed freaking everywhere. They have like, four different lookout posts. There's almost no chance that we'll be able to bust in there. Either we sneak in, which will be _very_ difficult, or we come up with a plan B."

"Damn," Emily says. "That probably would have been our best shot. I guess for now we wait for Louise and Josette's reports."

"Don't bother. You probably already know what we're going to say," Louise says, walking into the room with Josette in tow.

"... You two look like hell," I observe, giving them both a once-over. Their clothes had several tears, what looked like burns and they were just filthy in general. "What the hell happened?"

"Louise messed up," Josette says, trying to shake some of the dust from her hair. "She can't aim her explosions very well, it seems."

"That was completely intentional," Louise says, swiping at some dust still attached to her stocking. What's left of it anyway. "It was a smokescreen, a diversion tactic!"

"A pretty bad one," Josette laments. "I nearly died. My lungs are perfectly fine and that smoke nearly killed me."

"Stop complaining," Louise tells her. "Anyway, we weren't able to find anything exceptional. They have a bunch of guards roaming the streets. Most major establishments have someone positioned there."

"All travel ports, pubs, a few stores," Josette starts counting off. "They all have at least a few guards on lookout. Luckily none of them seemed to recognize us, so we did't havet that much trouble. Well, until the end, that is."

"I still blame you for that," Louise says. "Why would you ask for directions in a town that wants us dead?"

"I-I'm sorry," Josette says. "I f-forgot. I thought it would be okay."

"It's fine, just make sure you don't make a mistake like that again," Louise says. "There's a lot a stake here and we can't afford to screw up like that."

"Swear," Josette says meekly.

"Ah! So that's what we decided," Emily says. "I'll make sure to get a swear jar later. We could use the budget."

"So what do we do now?" Josette asks. "Should we start working on our next mission or-"

"Take a bath, that's what," Louise says. "I'm filthy and exhausted. I wouldn't mind just soaking for a few hours."

"M-me too," Josette says, taking note of her own appearance. "Emily, do we have a bath here?"

"Of course we do!" Emily proclaims. "This place came fully stocked, after all. Josh, you get some free time. I'm going to show these two how the bath works. Rest easy, we'll be back out in a bit."

"Wait, we're all going in at once?" Josette asks.

She doesn't get an answer. At least, not a verbal one. Emily grabs Louise and Josette by the arm and drags them towards the bath. ... I didn't actually know this place had a working bath. I mean, there's a public bath place down the street. We've been using that during the week or so we've been here. Then we got tangled in all this "public enemy" crap, and it snowballed from there so I suppose that's out. Damn shame too, it was a nice place. Shit, it just occurred to me that we've only been here for a few days. Let's see, we got here, waited about three days when we had our meeting with the pope, that was two days ago so... Yeah, like five days. Five days and we managed to become the most wanted terrorists in the world. Gotta admit, that's kind of impressive. Let's not repeat that.

Anyway, since the girls are taking a bath, that leaves me all by my lonesome. ... Now what? I suppose... Screw it, I'm going to my room. Let's get all the information out of that stupid apple as I can. The sooner we get this shit over with the better.

My course charted, I head on up to my room, taking care to lock the door behind me. I'd hate to get interrupted while in the middle of something important and it all falls apart. That'd be unfortunate.

I pull the Apple of Eden out of my desk drawer and take a seat. One transition later and I'm in Apple-vision where Minerva seems to be waiting for me.

"Heya Minney," I say with a wave of my hand.

"My name is Minerva," she tells me.

"Right, right," I dismiss the complaint with a wave of my hand and turn towards the memory shards. "Hey, Minerva?"

"Yes?"

"There's only two memory shards left," I note.

"Indeed," she confirms. "These are the final two events that Sasha deemed important enough to store in the Apple."

"Such shit!" I exclaim. "I haven't gotten any answers whatsoever! The hell is this crap? I don't know anything about the Pieces of Eden I didn't already know before, I'm not any closer to finding out anything new or anyway to fight Pope Asshole the first! What a ripoff!"

"Perhaps you should experience the events first before complaining," Minerva says. "The answers you seek may still be there."

"... **** it, we're marathoning this shit," I declare. "I'm finishing these two off so I can start playing with a full deck. So help me god, if I don't get some answers then I _will_ be back here to interrogate you!"

"I will answer your questions to the best of my ability when that time comes," Minerva says.

"Mmmmm. Fine. See you when I'm done," I tell her before heading for the penultimate memory piece. "This better be good."

***Scene Break***

I'm in the house I was in last time, right? ... Right, appears that way. Should probably go downstairs and talk with Sa-

"Josh!"

Or she can run up here, that's cool too. Seems urgent, what with her panicked expression and all that.

"Sasha, what's up?" I ask, dragging myself out of the bed..

"Get ready, we've been found," she tells me.

"Found? By who?"

"Brimir! He finally found us," Sasha says. "We're gonna have to fight his forces off. We can buy enough time for everyone to escape unharmed. Are you ready?"

… I just got here. What the hell is this! Sasha, I swear if you did this on purpose then I will… I don't even know. I mean, what are the odds that I show up literarily the day before a major invasion by the antagonist? I mean seriously, what the hell kind of odds are those? That's so stupid! In addition, I just woke up! I have to fight off a bunch of soldiers while half asleep? Screw it, let's go beat up some guards, I got nothing better to do. Me and Sasha run out of the house and are met with the sight of the town being overrun by soldiers.

"… Does freaking every evil person in this world work this fast?" I ask. "I mean seriously, they can't have been here any longer then a few minutes so… Sasha? Where'd you go?"

I look around and see a bunch of assorted elf vs. human fights, but Sasha's gone. Okay, so it's not just bad guys, everyone works fast when I'm not looking. That probably explains why I'm always on the backend of getting things done. I mean, I know that's kind of how things work with the bad guys getting something done first then the hero steps up to stop them. That's fine. What isn't fine is when they start doing this crap like spontaneously pulling five skyscraper sized nigh-invulnerable metal golems out of their ass, or letting the entire city, not a small city either, know that you're a "criminal" within only an hour of the accident happening at most, or finding out where the last hidden sanctuary in a war is the day after you show up. It's crap. It does make a good argument for their being some kind of higher being. Who else could coordinate such stupid events together? Ahem. God, Jesus, Buddha, Kali, Amaterasu, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Lovecraft, Haruhi, Madoka (or Homura, I'm not picky), whichever god it may be, please stop being such a bastard. Sincerely-

"A human? Not something I expected to see here."

"Can you give me a minute, I'm praying to the gods to stop being such assholes," I say, turning towards the voice. Speaking of praying and assholes, "Hi Brimir. Been keeping busy?"

Yeah, the prodigal asshole returns. ... Prodigal. Does that fit? Who cares. Anyway, Brimir looked the same. Like, exactly the same. Scarily so. I mean, the pope staff's new but that just goes without saying. He doesn't seem to recognize me at first, but then it all clicks for him.

"My, what a pleasant surprise," Brimir says. "I certainly didn't expect to find you here. What brings you to the Elves' Last Stand?"

"I was in the neighborhood, heard you became a real asshole and thought I'd help an old friend out," I tell him. "I must say, I didn't expect you to find this place so quickly, or to have launched a siege all by yourself."

"What do you mean by that?" Brimir asks. "It certainly appears to my eyes that my army is quite substantial."

I briefly aim my left arm and fire the gun built into my hidden blade. The bullet goes flying and tears through the skull of one of Brimir's soldiers in the midst of it's combat. Instead of the expected brain and tissue, the guard simply vanishes, leaving nothing except a very confused opponent who then moves on to the next one.

"How'd you pull that off?" I ask. "Added perk of the staff?"

"Perceptive one, aren't you?" Brimir asks.

I'd point out that it's more luck and common sense then perception, but I'll take this moment. I mean, Brimir couldn't make armies with ease before, and the only thing that's changed from then and now is he got the fancy stick. Ergo, fancy illusion stick.

"Indeed, you figured out the trick," Brimir says. "Rarely have I actually brought an army with me, even when it was ready and willing to fight. After all, mere humans can't possibly hope to go against the Elves' special breed of magic. No matter the army size they would eventually fall under the weight of the Elves forces. However, if that army were to have an infinite number of troops, the story is quite different. We can finally win."

"Uh... Huh," I don't really know how to go on from there.

"But I'm impressed, you're the first one to see right through the trick, obvious as it is," Brimir tells me. "How did you know that?"

"They're obviously fake," I tell him. "Look, they flicker. And they have this weird sort of translucency."

"I see," Brimir says, nodding his head. "I never noticed that myself."

"My turn. What the hell is with all this?" I ask Brimir. "Why are you trying to kill all the elves?"

"Why shouldn't I?" Brimir asks. "They've been a threat to humans for far too long, and we've had no way to defend ourselves against them. Now we can, and now we can take the fight to them and win. Isn't it only human nature to try and eradicate threats to our well being? To try and defend ourselves? You understand better then anyone else in this village, don't you?"

"... My god, is freaking everyone who holds that staff this stupid?" I ask.

"E-excuse me?"

"I mean seriously, there's that asshole Vit, or whatever the hell he's called and all his 'oh, holy land, holy land peace for all and love for all,' and that's stupid for a crap ton of reasons and then you're here with you, 'oh, these people who have never dine anything to me are evil, let's wipe 'em all out.' What the actual hell man?! Seriously? The elves are a threat? What the hell did they ever do to you? I don't get it! Sasha, help me out here!"

"A little busy!" She calls, before returning to her fight with a soldier. I walk over to her, stab the soldier in the neck and he disappears.

"There, now help me out," I say, dragging her over to Brimir. "This guy's being an idiot, help me understand him."

Neither Brimir nor Sasha says anything, instead opting to stare each other down. Come on, I brought you two together so we can get this over with, not so we can stare deeply into each other's eyes. Someone say something. Say something. Anything. No one? Nothing?

"Is this because the fight's still going?" I ask. "Do you two not want to talk until the battle's over? Fine then. Okay, how do I use this?"

"H-huh? When did you-"

I tap the Staff of Eden against the ground and the illusions all disappear. So that's how that works. I should file that away as useful information. I stab the staff into the ground and lean up against the makeshift pole.

"Alright, fight's over, start talking."

"What's there to talk about?" Sasha asks.

"Maybe ask him why he's doing this?" I offer. "Come on, I'm trying to get a conversation going here and you two just keep shutting it down!"

"I already said why I'm doing what I am," Brimir says, glaring at Sasha. "I cannot allow any threats to humanity to stand."

"We're not a threat," Sasha declares, returning the glare with equal force. "We never did anything to you or your people. We never acknowledged your existence, and yet you decide we're a threat?"

"There's that superior attitude shining through," Brimir says. "You elves all think so highly of yourself just because of your spirits and their magic. You think that just because your magic is more powerful then anything humans could dream of that you're superior to us."

... Well, I mean, there are worse reasons for thinking that. I mean, if you're objectively better in every possible way then I suppose you're kind of justified.

"No more," Brimir says. "Soon, we humans will have the upper hand."

"Is this a victory by default thing since you're trying to kill all the elves or something else?" I ask.

They both turn and give _that_ look. You know which one.

"Josh, do you really think he would tell you?" Sasha asks. "Be honest, did you really think there was any chance of him telling you what he's planning."

"I mean... I guess not," I admit. "Worth a shot."

"No, it wasn't," Brimir says. "It really wasn't. Nevertheless, I suppose you'll find out once it's ready. Until then, I suppose this siege has been a failure."

"You're out? Just like that?" I ask. "Freaking awful siege, man! I mean, seriously? I mean, I don't know what I expected from a one man siege."

"I shall take my leave now," Brimir says, taking his staff back. The same staff I'm leaning against, sending me tumbling towards the ground.

"Ow! Asshole," I mutter, pulling myself out of the dirt.

"You think I'll let you go so easily?" Sasha asks, pointing her sword at Brimir.

"No."

"You think you'd be able to fight me off?" Sasha asks.

"No."

Brimir taps his staff, and me and Sasha are surrounded by illusion soldiers.

"Not alone, anyway," he finishes. "Farewell Sasha, Joshua. Until we meet again."

With that, Brimir walks off leaving me and Sasha to deal with the illusions. Me and Sasha press our backs together and face the soldiers.

"I count 20," I say, extending both hidden blades and readying myself. "Think we can take them?"

"It might be trouble if one more showed up," Sasha says.

"Then that'll be the one I take out."

"Oh, you're fighting too?"

My witty response is cut off by the illusions all charging us at once. I'll skip the fight, you know how it ends. It wasn't even that interesting, we cut them all down without any trouble whatsoever. I was kind of hoping for something a bit more impressive, but whatever.

"Okay, that's done," I say, trying to catch my breath. "Next step?"

"We need to go around, make sure everyone's alright," Sasha tells me. "We can figure it out after that."

"Got it. I'll cover this general area," I gesture in a vague direction, "and you can get over in that direction."

"Meet back at my house when you think you've got everyone."

With that, we split up and start going around. I guess there were either more illusions then I thought or they were surprisingly competent. I mean, there were a lot of injuries. Most injuries seemed kind of minor though, so I guess it sort of balances out. I was able to direct every injured elf I found to the nearest medical center (if you're wondering how I knew where it was, the first elf I helped happened to be the chief nurse, go figure). The last elf I came upon happened to be a bit special. At least, in that I recognized her.

"Marisa? You okay here?" I ask, kneeling down next to her as she lies down on the ground.

"You're still here?" she asks. "Stu… Stupid human. Led them right to us, didn't you?"

"Oh, okay then. Guess that's where we're going. Need a little help, or do you want me to tell you where to get medical treatment then buzz off?"

"I… I'm fine," Marisa says. She tries to get up, only to let out a cry of pain, then fall on her face.

"H-hey, are you sure you're fine?" The second I finish that question I notice the huge gash running down her left leg. Shit, what the hell happened to her? It couldn't have been illusions, they're not real so… Screw it, doesn't matter.

"I'm fine, human," Marisa tells me. "I can make it back on my own."

"Doesn't look like it. That wound's pretty bad. Want me to carry you there or something?"

"Wh-what? Of course not!" She says, pulling herself to her feet. She's very clearly in pain, but she tries to ignore it. She disregards my existence and proceeds to start limping off, trying to put as little weight on her injured leg as possible. Injured is kind of an understatement when you realize that the cut runs down her entire leg. I don't know if it's very deep, but that's still a lot of injury. Screw this, this girl is getting a piggyback ride whether she wants it or not. I walk in front of her, kneel down and offer my back.

"Climb on," I tell her. "That's too nasty of a wound to just let sit. I'll bring you to the Nurse."

"I don't need a human's help!" she declares. See, it's attitudes like that that cause all the world's problems. Wouldn't the world be such a nicer place if 10 year old elves didn't hate me? I'd like that.

"Just climb on," I tell her. "Wouldn't be easier on you to just accept a little help?"

"I don't need help," she insists. "I'll be fi- ah!"

She tried to walk away, but accidentally out weight on her bad leg. Marisa stumbled, fell and landed right on my back. Perfect! Let's go. I stand up and start walking towards that nurse center.

"I'm not doing this because I needed help," Marisa says. "This is really just kidnapping when you think about it. I certainly didn't give consent for this treatment."

"How old are you?" I ask her. "I certainly didn't know any words like 'consent' when I was a kid."

"I'm 10," she says.

"How's a 10 year old get a wound like that?" I ask. "Can't have been an accident. You'd have to fail pretty hard to get a wound like that on accident."

"…"

"It wasn't an accident, was it?"

"It wasn't," she says quietly. "One of the soldiers that was invading got me. I was defending someone and he got me. Swearsies."

… Swearsies? My god, that's adorable. Probably not what happened, but I'll not press the issue. Doesn't really matter, I suppose.

"… Hey, human?"

"My name's Josh," I tell her. "But ask your question anyway."

"You didn't lead them here, did you?" Marisa asks. "Sasha didn't lie when she said I could trust you, did she?"

"For better or worse, I'm trustworthy," I tell her. "This was a complete coincidence. Brimir would have shown up whether I was here or not."

"Brimir?" Marisa asks. "He was here?"

"The only one actually." I explain to her about the illusions and everything. It didn't take as long as I thought it would. She's a sharp one.

"So… when everyone disappeared… that was you?" Marisa asks.

"I guess so," I say. I can't tell her that stoping the siege wasn't really my intention. I mean, it was a bit of an accident. I probably should have thought about that kind of thing a bit more, but oh well. I hear Marisa mumble something, but I can't quite catch it.

"Pardon me? Didn't hear you."

"… Thank you," she says, burying her face into my back for some reason.

"No problem. I tend to help out a lot of people these days it seems."

It didn't take that long for us to reach the nursing center (it is a pretty small town after all) so I dropped Marisa off and headed back to Sasha's house. She was already there when I got back, so I suppose she didn't make any detours.

"Got everybody?" Sasha asks me. "Any problems?"

"I think so. I dropped Marisa off at the nurse place since her leg was hurt pretty bad, but other then that nothing special. She's fine, by the way."

"That's good to hear," Sasha seems relieved. "I was worried about her. That doesn't matter now though."

"Right. How do we deal with that Brimir problem?" I ask. "I don't suppose we just march right in and beat him up, do we?"

"That's exactly what we do," Sasha tells me.

"… Excuse me? We can do that?"

"Were you hoping for a better idea?"

"No! Not at all! I'm just surprised, that's all. Most of the time we're trying to come up with some alternative solution so I'm just ecstatic that it's our first option! When do we start? Actually, where are we going?"

"I know exactly where we going," Sasha says. "Brimir's birth home. That's where we'll find him. I hope you're ready because we're going right now."

"Kickass, let's head out!"

Our plan set up, we grab our gear and head on out.

***End of Memory Sequence***

Well, that was fun. I think I learned a bit too!

"So, Minerva. The Staff of Eden. That's it's power? To control minds and create illusions?"

"Indeed," Minerva confirms. "On it's own it is rather weak, though combined with the Apple of Eden it's abilities are multiplied."

"And Brimir was in possession of both and nearly caused a genocide as a result. Shit, I'm glad I have the Apple and the Pope doesn't. The next memory fragment is the last one, isn't it?"

"It is the last one that Sasha encoded into the Apple," Minerva confirms.

"Awesome. I better get some juicy information out of this or I'm gonna be pissed. Alright, let's wrap this party up!"

I touch the final memory fragment, and my vision fades to white.

**Author Notes:**

Uncreative: Welcome back everyone, have a flashback chapter!

Jocelyn: Woot! More Marisa! I like her. Not as cool as my Marisa, but she seems cool. I wouldn't mind hanging out with her.

Uncreative: So yeah, next chapter is the last 6000 years ago chapter. That was quick. It's served it's purpose well though.

Jocelyn: I'm gonna miss Sasha. Next chapter better be a good send off!

Uncreative: Now onto the story itself in both the present and past. Present meaning this chapter. While stuff happened, not much happened worth talking about. Brimir showed up and attack the village, but that's about it.

Jocelyn: I hate illusions. I haven't had good experiences with them. I'll say that I'm glad I'm not dealing with that and just wish big bro the best of luck.

Uncreative: Despite my "experiment" in trying to make a chapter no one would read, I'm going to assume you read the bonus chapter last time and thus know that Jocelyn and Josh as siblings. If not, then… oops. Spoilers. Sorry. I did notice one thing though.

Jocelyn: What's that?

Uncreative: I think I've been making the same mistake over and over again. Is it spell Jocelyn or Joselyn?

Joc/selyn: Um… I think the S version is German, or something. I'm not German.

Uncreative: Okay, and is the shortened version Joc or Joss? I think they're pronounced the same but I have no idea which to use.

Joc/selyn: … Don't look at me, I have no idea myself. Let's stick with Joc and hope no one is confused.

Uncreative: Oh yeah, going back to last chapter, you can go ahead and read it if you want. It's just a bonus chapter/cross over with that other story I'm writing, but I thought it came out well. And check out Make a Wish, while I'm busy shamelessly plugging my other writings. We'll actually talk about this story next chapter, I promise.

Jocelyn: See you all next time!

Uncreative: We're done here.


	26. Chapter 24

**Chapter 24: End of an Era**

How nice. The memory fragment deposited me directly where I needed it. In this case, me and Sasha were standing right in front of some large building. Kind of looks like some old, fancy castle. Final dungeon located?

"We're finally here," Sasha says.

"You're sure he'll be in here?" I ask. "This isn't like some mistake, or trick, trap, plan within a plan, enigma-"

"Josh."

"Yes?"

"Shut up."

"Just saying, there are many possibilities contained within here. Maybe we should-"

***JUSTICE KICK***

"Kick the door down and rush right in, I like your style," I tell Sasha.

"Come on, let's go."

Sasha walks into the building with me following behind. For those playing along at home, let's start counting all the cliches! First: the door leads to an empty corridor lit by candlight that screams "continue forward at your own risk." Second: The door shut behind us when we walked in. Third: Brimir is right in front of us. Four if it's illusion Brimir, but let's wait on counting that one.

"I must say, I didn't expect you two come come by for a personal visit," Brimir says. "I would have dressed the place up a bit nicer."

"Brimir," Sasha growls.

"Your hat is stupid," I finish for her.

And thus, we discovered the origin of the pope hat.

"M-my hat is not stupid!" Brimir exclaims. "It is a symbol of my power and position and I will not stand for you insulting me!"

"But it's so stupid," I retort. "I mean look at it! Everything about that design is stupid!"

"It is a really stupid hat," Sasha says.

"Forget about the hat!" Brimir says. He sighs, takes off the hat and throws it away. "Okay, hat's gone. Happy now?"

"Much better," I say. "I had trouble taking you seriously for a minute there."

"No we can get down to business," Sasha says, readying her sword. "Brimir, we're here to stop you."

"And how do you plan to do that?" Brimir asks. "Unless you kill me, I'll never stop until my goal is complete. If by some miracle you do kill me, then you'll have the entire human race turned against you for kill their 'savior,' the person who gave them hope against the elf's evil onslaught."

"What have you been telling these people?" Sasha asks.

"Very little," Brimir says. "They spread most of it themselves. Rumors are the most powerful form of persuasion known to man. Of course a few people needed an extra push, but a simple wave of my staff blows away all their fears."

"You mind controlled the people who didn't listen to you?" I ask. "You're a ****ing bastard!"

"Nothing so barbaric," Brimir assures me. "I merely persuaded them. A little subconscious chat and they could rest assured that I had only their best interests at heart."

"Dude, you're freaking disgusting," I tell him. "That's seriously ****ed up."

"Brimir, what happened to you?" Sasha asks. "You were so kind, so caring. This isn't like you at all. What did that staff do to you?!"

"It opened my eyes, dear Sasha," Brimir says. "It gave me knowledge I could have never dreamed of before! With this knowledge I can guide humanity down a brighter path then it ever could have had before!"

"Is that what you think humanity needs?" Sasha asks. "To be guided down a darkened path paved with the blood and bodies of my people? You wish to guide humanity towards a dark future full of violence and hatred? Is that what you think is best for your people?"

Getting a little preachy there, but she makes some good points. How does Brimir counter? Does he go for the tried and true "can't make an omelette without breaking some elves" approach? Let's see.

"Sasha, we humans have been chosen by Those Who Came Before," Brimir counters. "We have been chosen to ascend by a greater power then anyone else on this planet! If sacrifices must be made to elevate ourselves to the position we have been chosen for and reach our rightful place, then so be it."

"Well that's good and all, but aren't they all dead?" I ask.

Brimir seems shocked. Guess he didn't see that one coming.

"Wh-what are you talking about?"

"Well, I haven't seen any of them around or anything like that, so doesn't that mean that all of the people who belonged to the First Civilization are all dead and gone? Even if some small fragment of their DNA is passed down, the civilization itself is dead. All that's left is the Apple and the Staff. Hardly a civilization. That being so, your whole spiel about your rightful place and all that? A for effort, but it's still kind of a stupid reason when the people who gave you your 'rightful place' aren't around anymore."

"Y-you're wrong!" Brimir says. "As long as I'm alive and have the Pieces of Eden then their civilization still exists! We can rebuild and rise to our rightful position!"

"And what does that have to do with the elves?" Sasha asks. "Are we somehow in the way of your selfish desire?"

"Would you not feel threatened by a rival race's rise to power?" Brimir asks. "Would you not retaliate to defend yourselves? It is merely a precaution against your kind, well known for it's hatred of humans."

"We don't hate humans! We don't care about humans!" Sasha insists. "Why do you think we never cared about your matters before? We never saw a need to do anything, that's it!"

"We're talking in circles here," I interrupt. "We'll never get anywhere. Let's just skip to the part where we beat him up and win, alright?"

"You think you can best me?" Brimir asks. There's a bright light and a second Brimir spawns next to him. "Me, who holds the power of a race far more advanced then any other?"

Another Brimir spawn walks right out of the original, followed by another, and another, and another.

"You think you can best the power of gods?" They all ask in unison.

***BANG***

Brimir cries out in pain and grabs his shoulder. Considering the arm I shot was the arm holding the staff, he dropped that as well. Huh, I guess he was the real Brimir after all.

"Guns are better then gods, go figure."

"H-how did you-"

"Word of advice: if you're going to try and fake someone out with a bunch of illusions, you should probably move around with them. If you don't all you did was a fancy parlor trick without actually disguising where you are," I tell him.

"Nice shot Josh," Sasha tells me. "Shooting his shoulder so he drops the staff and loses the illusions. Just what I expected of you."

"I was aiming for the stick," I tell her. As expected of me, I suppose.

"It doesn't matter," Brimir says, still clutching his shoulder. He refrains from saying more and charges for the staff. Sasha's faster though and makes it to the staff before Brimir. She kicks it away then turns and points her sword at Brimir.

"Brimir, stop this," Sasha says. "Please."

Brimir pulls out his wand and points it at her in response. There a light and an explosion where Sasha used to be. Luckily she seemed to predict that because she threw herself to the side, dodging the blast. Brimir fires off several more blasts, and Sasha and I dive for cover.

"My apologies," Brimir says. "I haven't had to use such uncivilized magic in a long time. It still serves as a good distraction from time to time though."

"Distraction?" I ask no one in particular.

The smoke clears and we're met with the sight of Brimir holding the staff/apple combo once more. Right, a distraction.

"So what now?" I ask. "We continue this song and dance until one side dies?"

"I have a better idea," Brimir says, turning his back to us. "There's one experiment I wished to try. Allow my guards to entertain you while I go and set it up."

On cue, a swarm of guards come in from freaking everywhere. They didn't just appear from nowhere, so I assume they're real. This got interesting real fast. Brimir walks away leaving us to deal with them. No words this time, Sasha just gets to work tearing through the guards to try and get to Brimir. She runs after him, leaving me alone with some guards.

"... I don't a suppose a white peace is in the cards?" I try.

"Surrender and Brimir might forgive you," one of the guards tries. "He will be merciful should you choose to help him in his plan."

"Uh huh. How about no?"

"You would betray humanity and ally yourself with the terror of the elves?" The guard asks.

"Well it that's how you want to word it," I say with a shrug.

The conversation ends, and the guard swings his sword at me. I catch it with one hidden blade, and stab him in the neck with the other one. It's weird. I'm not one for killing, it's really something I'd rather avoid if given the option, but I'm perfectly okay with offing these guys. Maybe it's because their plotting genocide, maybe it's because they're 6000 years old and thus already dead, maybe it's because I know this didn't really happen as I'm seeing it and is all just a sort of simulation, I don't know. I just really don't care much about what happens to these guys. I probably should feel bad about that. I'll talk to a priest later or something, Romalia's probably full of them.

Another guards swings at me which I dodge by stepping back. I take a step towards the guard and puncture his stomach with my blade. I could probably take all these guards easily, but I don't have the time. I need an opening. How many guards left, around four or five? Okay, I got this.

I kick one guard in the stomach causing him to double over. I vault over him catching onto his collar with the hook part of the blade. I use the momentum from the vault and toss the guard at his friends, knocking them all over. I take this moment to jump over them and run off.

"Sorry!" I yell back at them. "I'm a little busy at the moment!"

I run down the hall, trying to catch up with Sasha and Brimir. It'd be easier if I knew where they went, but this hall only goes one way. They can't gotten too far.

***Fast forwarding to relevant memory***

Or we can do that, I like that. Time speeds up a little and the memory fragment fast forwards to where I need it to go. How nice of this fancy little contraption. The point it forwarded me to was a giant, round room. In the center of this room was Brimir and Sahsa, both breathing heavily and cut up badly. I note that the Staff and Apple are separate, the staff in Brimir's hand and the Apple is rolling around on the floor.

Sasha charges Brimir and slashes, but he blocks with the staff then retaliates with a stab. Sasha jumps back to avoid it, then jumps right back into the fray. The two exchange blow after blow, blocking, parrying and dodging. What can I do in this situation? Maybe I can grab the apple? Yeah, that sounds good. Someone might trip on it at this rate. Yeah, let's do that. I sneak up to the fight and try to grab the Apple. I reach for it, only to be cut off by the pointed tip of the Staff stabbing into the few centimeters of ground between my hand and the apple. I jerk backwards, nearly falling over.

"How nice of you to join us," Brimir says.

"Hi," I reply. "Just trying to get the Apple. I'd hate for one of you to trip over it. That'd be one hell of an anticlimax."

"No need," Brimir says. He slightly punts the Apple with the tip of the Staff. It roles slightly before falling into a round indentation. The Apple clicks into place, opening a small compartment right next to it. Brimir reaches into it and pulls out what looks like a small, round mirror.

"... Nice mirror?" I offer. "Don't tell me that's your whole thing. A mirror."

"Yes, this mirror, once perfect will truly allow us to conquer the elves," Brimir says. "Do you know it this mirror does?"

"Allow you to look at your fabulous self?" I ask.

"Josh, shut up!" Sasha barks at me.

"It's very powerful magic," Brimir says. "It's based off of some of the technology from the First Civilization. What we could find, anyway. My magic, the magic of void, is a result of them and their efforts after all and it is the only thing that has allowed us to fight against the elves. Imagine if all of humanity had that kind of power. We'd become the most powerful species of all time."

"Then that mirror-"

"Was made to copy my magic and give it to my followers," Brimir tells Sasha. "Unfortunately it is still a work in progress. All it can do is take magic from someone permanently and transfer it to only one other person."

What did he just say?

"Then why bother bringing it out now?" Sasha asks.

"I wanted to see if it worked on magic other then void," Brimir says. "Once I'm done with you, I figured that I'd test that out. Having an elf's magic would make for a fantastic boon, would it not?"

"You've truly gone insane, haven't you?" Sasha asks.

I miss Brimir's response because I'm too focused on that mirror. It can take someone's magic and give it to someone else. Anyone. Could it even take away a void mage's abilities? I think I just got what I needed from this, and it's looking very good.

For now, let's get back to- HOLY SHIT! I blinked and missed it! In front of me was Brimir wish Sasha right in front of him, her sword having pierced him through the chest. Wait, did I just miss the climax? Damn everything! I missed the best part because I wasn't paying attention! Screw it, I don't care anymore. I'm done. The two are having a tender moment with Brimir apologizing for being such a dick and Sasha apologizing for what she had to do. I think something in the conversation was meant to imply that this was just an effect of the Pieces of Eden amplifying Brimir's own jealousy of the elves and how awesome they are. Maybe I should pay attention.

"I'm sorry, Sasha," Brimir says. "I never meant for it to go like this."

"Don't apologize," Sasha tells him, her eyes wet with tears. "It wasn't your fault. It was that artifact."

"I wish that were true," Brimir says, smiling weakly. "My actions are my own and for that I can blame no one but myself. Sasha? Can I ask for one last favor?"

Sasha doesn't say anything and nods her head. Brimir grabs the Apple from the indent on the floor and hands it to her.

"Please. Make sure no one makes the same mistake I did," Brimir says.

"I will," Sasha says, taking the Apple. "No one will ever have to go through this ever again. I swear to you."

... Well, this conversation's kind of awkward in light of recent events. Exceptionally awkward. I'll keep my mouth shut and not ruin the moment. Brimir looks like he wants to say more, but can't seem to muster the strength. He smiles, then closes his eyes for the last time. Sasha stands up and tightens her grip on the Apple. She turns and walks away, paying me no mind. There's nothing else for me here. Brimir is dead, Sasha's gone to who knows where, and I gained some useful pieces of information. I end the memory fragment and find myself back in the white room with Minerva.

"Have you learned what you were hoping to?" Minerva asks.

"I don't know," I admit. "I certainly gained some interesting pieces of info. So Sasha killed Brimir, huh?"

"That is correct," Minerva confirms. "After slaying her master, she took the Apple of Eden and wandered the Earth, trying to prevent another war of that nature from ever occurring again. She was seen as a champion of the elves, and thus scorned by the humans who vilified her for her murder of their founder."

"All that work and she gets handed a sack of shit," I say. "I feel sorry for her."

"She never regretted her decision, so do not feel for her," Minerva tells me.

"Minerva, I just realized something. Only people with a bit of DNA passed down from the First Civilization, people like me, Brimir and the Pope, can use the Pieces of Eden properly. How could Sasha use it then? Didn't Those Who Came Before only enslave humans?"

"We attempted to control many different races when we existed here," Minerva says. "Humans were merely one, as were the elves."

I get it. That's interesting. Well, since she seems in a mood that answer things, let's keep it rolling.

"What happened to you guys anyway?" I ask. "Why did Those Who Came Before die out?"

"Thousands of years ago a solar flare nearly wiped out all life on Earth. We had discovered the existence of this world some time before and thought to flee here to rebuild and recover. Our efforts were fruitless, however. There were simply too few of us to ever hope to rebuild what was left of our previous civilization."

I'd ask how they found out about another world, but they're super high-tech, they're probably from another world themselves. Minerva probably wouldn't tell me anyway.

"So the Pieces of Eden we have here-"

"The Staff and the Apple are all we were able to bring over with us," Minerva says. "We had hoped to build more once we reestablished our people but we were unable to."

"So when you said that the others were somewhere unobtainable-"

"They are back on your home world, Earth," Minerva confirms. "The only one here who could obtain them is the owner of the World Door spell, and no one on the world is aware that those artifacts exist."

Okay, I know I should be happy that I'm finally getting answers but can you please stop interrupting me? Whatever, pseudo-time travelers can't be choosers I suppose. Though there is one thing that's bugging me.

"Minerva, what do you know about the mirror that Brimir had?" I ask. "He said it could take away someone's magic."

"Indeed," Minerva says. "The Founder's Round Mirror, as it has come to be called. A powerful artifact capable of transferring magic. Surprisingly it even could affect wielders of Void. I suppose that is due to it having been reverse engineered from our artifacts."

First off, that is the stupidest name I've ever heard for anything ever. Second:

"Say what? He did what now?" I ask.

"Brimir studied the Pieces of Eden in his possession and was able to discern the patterns behind void magic as well as what the Pieces themselves were capable of," Minerva explains. "This is how he was able to begin development of the mirror. However it was made so that it can be used by people who aren't of our blood. He likely wanted to make sure his followers could use it freely without needing to track down others of our bloodline."

Smart guy. Seems he really thought this whole thing out. Can't say I blame him, when you're going on a crusade you'll definitely want everything perfect. I mean, my only experience with crusades is freaking Crusader Kings 2, and I suck at that game so what do I know?

"Do you know where the mirror is now?" I ask. If nothing else, I want to make sure no one else gets a hold of that thing. It could be really useful in the right hands.

"I imagine it is where it was last left," Minerva says. "Sasha left both the staff and the mirror behind when she left. The staff was buried with Brimir as you know."

"Okay… Okay, I can work with this," I say, nodding my head. "Thank you Minerva. You've been a great help and thanks to you I may be able to stop a genocide."

"You are welcome."

"Goodbye Minney, I'll stop by again if I need some emergency info."

"My name is Minerva."

"Right, right. See you around."

With that, I exit the Apple's data banks for the final time.

***Author Notes***

Uncreative: There we go! All done with the flashback segments!

Jocelyn: That sucked. Everything about that sucked. What the hell man! You skipped the climatic duel! That's the best part and you're just skipping and and going all "oh, he got stabbed, that sucks," and that's not cool!

Uncreative: So we learned a bit about the First Civilization's history with Halkegnia here.

Jocelyn: Don't ignore me!

Uncreative: I thought about going into a bit more detail, but I don't see how that would be particularly relevant. I mean, it's nice info to have in a story like that but it has little bearing anymore.

Jocelyn: Can we at least know how the hell they found Halkgenia? That's kind of a big detail to leave out.

Uncreative: A member of the First Civilzation was summoned as a familiar which is how the discovery was made. Once he was able to make contact with everyone back on Earth they began plans to move into Halkgenia and do the same thing they did to Earth. Unfortunately they all died before such a thing could come to fruition.

Jocelyn: … Really? You're gonna say it just like that?

Uncreative: No one reads the author notes, I could say whatever I want and no one would ever see it.

Jocelyn: Fair point. Okay, the mirror seems pretty important, where'd that come from?

Uncreative: My hazy memory tells me that something along those lines appeared in the anime. Or maybe it was the light novels. Maybe both? I haven't touched either in so long, I need to go over those again. Anyway, I vaguely remember something along those lines, so I threw it in, tied it up with a cute little backstory and put it under the tree for Christmas morning.

Jocelyn: That's neat. I never dealt with ancient alien magic artifacts. I just stabbed people.

Uncreative: We play the hand we're dealt. I think that's about it, see you all next chapter.

Jocelyn: Later everybody!

Uncreative: We're done here.


	27. Chapter 25

**Chapter 25: Second Grand Strategy Meeting**

Well. I dunno, my head's still a little fuzzy on all those details. What with these Pieces of Eden and inter dimensional not-humans and aaaaaah. Wait, if I have some First Civilization blood in me, as evidenced by the eagle vision and ability to use the Apple, doesn't that mean I'm only part human? Hmmmm. Cool. I'm fine with that. All the perks and none of the downsides that involve being extinct.

Anyway, I should probably have a chat with everyone else about what I learned. They'll probably have a few things to say about that stuff. I stick the Apple in my pocket and head downstairs to find the rest of my group. They said they were taking a bath, weren't they? They should be done by now I imagine.

Once downstairs I relocate to the living room I found Louise and Emily sitting in their chairs.

"Hey there," Emily says, raising a hand in greeting. "How're you doing, master?"

"Don't ask," Louise preempts, her face slightly dyed red.

"I mean I thought about it, but decided against it," I defend. "I'm sure their's a perfectly valid reason for your attire."

That attire being, in case you were wondering, was naught but towels. Kind of thin towels. Not sure why Louise and Emily are wearing only towels, but I've been warned about asking.

"No real reason," Emily says, pulling her legs up and sitting cross-legged on her chair. "Their was a bit of a mix up and most of the laundry's screwed up so this was all we had. Josette's busy over in the bathroom trying to clean them up a bit."

"I see," I say, not really seeing.

"It wasn't my fault this time," Louise says, hugging her knees to her chest. "I'm completely innocent this time."

"We can determine who's fault it is later," Emily says. "What were you up to while we were taking a bath?"

"Quite a bit." I pull the Apple out of my pocket and toss it onto the table we're all sitting around.

"That's the Apple of Eden?" Louise asks, leaning forward a bit to check it out. "It's just like the staff that His Holiness has, right?"

I nod my affirmation.

"So it was also made by... What did he call them? The Ones Who Came Before? It's just like that. So what can they do? I'm sorry but I'm a little behind compared to everyone else."

"I think you mean, 'compared to Josh and the Pope,'" Emily corrects. "Seems like these two are the only ones who know what's going on."

"Well, that's not wrong I suppose," I say with a shrug. "I'm just figuring most of this out myself though and that asshole has known for years. We're all a little behind, but I'm picking some stuff up as I go along."

"For example?" Louise asks.

"Well for starters Sasha killed Brimir," I open up with.

"What?!" Louise seems startled. "She killed the founder? But she was his familiar, wasn't she? Why would she do that?"

"Elf genocide, remember?" Emily says. "He was trying to kill her people. Makes sense from my point of view. I can't say I agree with it, but I understand. Still... It is a bit to take in."

"If I may continue," I begin, "Sasha killed Brimir and took the Apple from him. The staff was left with him-"

"And eventually buried with him, where it was discovered centuries later," Emily finishes.

"Bingo. Now, anyone heard of the Founder's Round Mirror?" I ask.

"Of course," Louise says. "It's an old legend about how the Founder had a mirror that could take magic away. It was an old bedtime story used on noble children to encourage them to use their magic for the right reason and not be selfish. 'If you're a selfish and rude noble then the founder will come upon you and use his round mirror to take your magic away.' Never did much for me obviously, but it's a cute story."

"I fail to see what's cute about a dead guy stealing your soul with a round, reflective piece of glass," Emily says.

"The Idea that Brimir had a mirror that could steal magic is kind of silly, isn't it?" Louise asks. "I can believe that he could take away magic if he needed to, but he does it with a mirror? That's stupid."

"..."

"Don't tell me it's true," Louise tells me, noticing my silence. "Something that ridiculous can't be true."

"Well, some details have been distorted I guess, but it's more or less accurate," I confirm. "He planned to use the mirror to copy his Void magic and spread it amongst his followers so they could all combat the elves on even footing. The mirror didn't work as intended, so all it could do was steal one person's magic and transfer it to somewhere else. Not as useful. There's some other assorted background stuff about it's creation, but that's all that matters."

"Why bring that up now?" Emily asks.

"That's our trump card," I tell them. "The mirror is located in a secret compartment that can only be opened with the Apple. Even if we assume that the Pope knows where it is, he can't get it and never had the chance to get it. All we need to do is go to Brimir's old haunt and get the mirror."

Louise opens her mouth to ask a question but stops, comprehension dawning on her face.

"I get it," she says, the gears in her head turning furiously. "You want to get the mirror and take the pope's void magic so he can't use his void and give it to me."

"You think fast," I compliment.

"W-wait, what?" Emily asks. It feels oddly good finally being able to surprise her. It happens so rarely that I savor every moment of it. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"If I had the Pope's magic then we'd have the world door spell and could use it at our leisure," Louise continues. "We could go back to Josh's world and come back to Halkengia whenever we need to."

"That's the new end goal," I say. "Originally I just wanted to deal with the situation then force the Pope to send me home, but this works much better. First we need to deal with the Pope himself. Just taking his magic won't do anything, he'd still be able to use the staff, and he'd still have his position so we we'd only solve one problem."

"U-um... The laundry's drying right now so I thought I'd drop by. What are we talking about?"

Josette has joined the party! Naked save for a towel wrapped around her of course, but now the whole gang's here! Josette takes a seat across from me and we fill her in on the discussion.

"S-so we have a checklist, right?" Josette asks. "We need to get rid of the Pope's magic, so you can go back to your world, his Staff of Eden, so he can't control anyone anymore, and his position as Pope so he can no longer call a crusade against anyone."

"We know how to get rid of his magic," Emily says. "I'll get started on tracking down the Founder's old home so we can get the mirror."

"We'd still need to get close enough to the Pope to use mirror," Louise points out. "That's easy though. Meeting up with him shouldn't be a problem. There's quite a few ways we could deal with that many of which are highly dangerous given the current situation. That's half the fun I suppose."

The last sentence was incredibly dry, even by Louise's standards so it's easy to see she's not happy with the idea.

"So what do we do about his staff?" Josette asks, hugging her chest. "These things are made by people that were considered gods when they existed. Are you sure they even _can_ be destroyed?"

"Oh yeah, easily," I assure her. "I can take care of that, no problem. We just need to get ahold of the Staff and I can take it from there."

"That's easier said then done," Louise says. "Again, just to confirm, you're _absolutely sure_ that you can handle that?"

"... Damn. I was running through a couple hundred different, witty ways of saying yes but couldn't pick one so I'll just say yes."

"That doesn't inspire much confidence," Louise says. "But knowing you I'm sure that it'll work out somehow."

"Thanks dear," I tell her. It's nice to finally have a genuine vote of confidence behind me for once.

"Then that leaves his status as pope," Emily begins. "That'll be a bit trickier. I suppose that translates to getting him excommunicated but how are we going to get the _pope_ excommunicated?"

"I'm turning around a few ideas, but that part I'm not sure of," I say, crossing my arms in front of my chest and thinking hard.

"A-ah!"

"Josette? What's up?" Emily asks.

"I had an idea!" Josette says, jumping to her feet. "Emily, could you-"

*idea censored*

What? It's common sense! If you say your ideas out loud before you actually implement then then they're doomed to fail! Common sense man. The idea'll make itself clear in time. Until then it'll stay behind the scene, waiting for it's debut. Anyway, Emily let loose a low whistle.

"Josette, I'm impressed!" Emily declares.

"I didn't expect something like that to come out of your mouth," Louise says, nodding in agreement. "I'm pleasantly surprised."

The three of them look at me expectingly.

...

"What?" I ask.

"Don't you have any words of encouragement for her?" Emily asks. "She just had a really good idea!"

"You're just going to let the moment pass by like that?" Louise says. "That's pretty rude."

"I-It's okay," Josette says, sounding rather crestfallen. "I w-wasn't really expecting anyone to like the idea anyway so that's fine."

"N-no, it's a great idea!" I say, standing up to meet her eye to eye. "Really, fantastic idea. I certainly never would have thought about it."

"Okay, then why didn't you say anything?" Emily asks.

"And don't say you didn't think you needed to add anything since me and the maid already said something," Louise continues.

"Oh, no I was just trying to think about how to tactfully tell Josette that her towel loosened a little when she jumped up earlier."

I mean, it hasn't fallen off or anything yet, but it's certainly starting to slip. And slip. And slip. Ah, there it goes. Right down to the floor, baring her skin to the world. One Mississippi, two Mississippi, three Mississippi, four Mississippi, five Mississippi-

"Kyaaa!"

*SMACK*

*SMACK*

*SMACK*

Five seconds for the reaction to begin. Everyone slapped me. Everyone. Except me. I didn't slap myself.

"Why me?!"

"Say something like that sooner!" Louise says. "It's important to mention things like that as soon as possible!"

"I-It's fine," Josette says, hiding behind her chair. "It was my fault for not noticing. I've never been good with wearing towels like that anyway. They're either too tight or too loose. I guess it was too loose this time."

"Ah damn it," Emily says. "Now we'll never get her out from behind that chair. You really couldn't have said anything sooner?"

"Whatever," I say, rubbing my cheek. "I have no more feeling in my face. I hope you're all happy. Screw it-"

"Swear."

"Forget it," I correct. "Emi, when can you start looking for Brimir's house?"

"I'll start first thing tomorrow morning," Emily announces. "It's a little late after all. I'm more likely to get something in the morning when I can get a few of my contacts on the line."

"And the other thing?" I ask.

"Same thing," Emily says with a grin. "After all, can't do anything about the public when they're all asleep, right?"

"Alright. We'll call it a night and get to work in the morning," I announce. "When we find out our destination Louise and I will head out, Josette, you stay with Emi and get working on that thing."

"I-I'll do my best," Josette says from behind the chair. "Um… C-could someone pass me my towel? I forgot to grab it."

Emily picks up the towel and throws it behind the chair, garnering a tiny "thank you" in response.

"Josette working with the maid I understand, but why am I going to the Founder's house?" Louise asks.

"What, don't want to be alone with me for a few hours?" I ask. "I'm hurt, sweetheart. I thought we had something."

"N-no, that's not it!" Louise cries, her face turning red. "I just don't know why I need to go."

I shrug. "I enjoy your company and I figured you wouldn't mind a chance to stretch your legs with something other then walking around town and looking at guards."

Louise thinks it over, then nods.

"Okay. I'm fine with that. I'll go."

"Bitchin'. Everyone know what they're doing?" Everyone nods. "Cool. Let's turn in for the night. See you in the morning everyone."

With that, we all head out for our rooms. Upon reaching my room I immediately collapsed upon my bed. Whew. Busy day. Busy, busy day. I saw a lot, learned a lot, got a lot planned. I think I finally earned myself a good night's sl-

*knock knock*

Of course I haven't! Screw it, I'm too lazy to get up.

"I'm done for the day and can't be asked to open the door for you, I apologize."

"You don't sound sorry," Louise says as she walks in, finally dressed in an actual outfit. I mean, the outfit was just her nightdress so she might as well have just been wearing the towel but who cares, I'm fine with either outfit. She walks up to the bed and sits down on the bed right next to me.

"What's up Louise?" I ask. "Something on your mind?"

"A lot of things," Louise says. "Too many things. Josh, what are we doing? We've gotten involved in something way too large. We shouldn't be having to deal with something like this, we're still kids."

"Teenagers, technically," I correct her. "We're not that young."

"My point it that we're just four people trying to take on an army and having to deal with information that has been buried under several millennia worth of time. It's a little worrying. I guess…" Louise sighs, then lies down on the bed as well. "I guess you just help calm me down and that's what I need right now."

"I help calm you down?" I ask. "How, by constantly riling you up, poking fun at you and elevating sarcasm to an art form?"

"Someone thinks highly of himself, doesn't he?" Louise asks. "'Elevating it to an art from.' That's just stupid."

I shrug.

"I just like being in your company," Louise says. "I love spending time with you. I always feel much better at the end of it, even if I was wishing it could have lasted longer. Don't get me wrong, I like Emily and Josette, but I'm at my most comfortable when I'm with you. Probably because we've spent more or less every day of the past year together."

"You can get to know a person well when you've spent that much time with them, that's for sure," I confirm. "Which is why I notice that this is rather unlike you. You're usually either sarcastic or angry. Sentimental is new. What gives?"

"Like I said, I'm worried," Louise says. "What if we fail? What if the Pope catches us and executes us or anything like that? I guess I feel like I don't want to die with any regrets."

"I'd say the same thing, but I can't think of anything I'd regret should I spontaneously die right now," I tell her. "… Nope, nothing off the top of my head."

"I have a few," Louise says. "Things I shouldn't have said, thing I haven't said enough. Mostly that."

"Is that so?" I ask. "Care to give an example?"

Louise moves over slightly and gives me a kiss on the cheek.

"I love you," she says. "That's something I haven't said nearly enough."

… Aaaah, my face is probably so red right now. I'm not used to being on the receiving end!

"Oh, so he can give it but he's not as good at taking it," Louise notes, smiling mischievously. Her smile drops immediately. "I can't say that. I'm the exact same."

"We all have our weak points," I say. "Some are better at hiding them then others."

"I guess that's something I'll have to work on," Louise says.

It would help your poker game, that's for sure.

"For now I guess I'll just have to stop being so sentimental to start," Louise says. "It isn't going to help us, that's for sure. You better enjoy tonight because you're certainly not going to see me act like this again!"

… Words can't express my disappointment. I kind of liked Louise like this.

"Hey, mind if I stay the night?" Louise asks. "I don't feel like leaving. Never mind, I rescind the question. I'm now telling you that I'm staying in your room tonight."

"What, is that another of your 'no regret' things?" I ask. "Being a little more selfish? Whatever, I'm fine with it."

"Good dog," Louise says, giving me a pat on the head.

And now I'm a dog again. I can't even count that as part of the talley since I lost count! God damn it. Regardless me and Louise spent some more time enjoying each other's company before eventually nodding off for the night.

***Author Notes***

Jocelyn: Sudden sap! The hell man? I was on board with the chapter then it suddenly got all sappy and stupid! What gives?

Uncreative: I suddenly remembered that those two are a couple and haven't acted like it. This was a supposed remedy to that. Supposed. It sucked because I can't write romance, but whatever, I gave it a shot.

Jocelyn: I thought it was stupid. Ah, that doesn't matter. So, sounds like this group finally has a plan.

Uncreative: As do I! I actually have a sort of outline for how this story's going to go. I said I'm getting this done by March and I'm getting it done by March! Next chapter we revisit Brimir's mansion to reclaim the mirror-shaped plot coupon. Get moderately enthused!

Jocelyn: Hype!

Uncreative: See you all next time. We're done here.

Jocelyn: Later everybody!


	28. Chapter 26

**Chapter 26: Journey into Mystery**

"And she was sure this is where it was?" Louise asks me. "Does this in any way look familiar?"

"I dunno, maybe," I say with a shrug. "I didn't get a good look. I was already there when we arrived and then Sasha kicked the door down and we went crazy."

"That's inspiring," Louise deadpans. "It doesn't matter I suppose. Credit where it's due, the maid can certainly get information when she needs to, so I'm willing to trust her on this. It's a part of being the most powerful information broker, I suppose."

"Been meaning to ask, why do you keep calling her 'the maid'?" I ask. "I know she actually _is_ our maid, but she does have a name. I think you've called her by name before too. What gives?"

"N-nothing," Louise says, looking away. "Nothing gives. I suppose we're just not on very good terms."

"You guys only ever seem to take baths when the other is there and when you come out you two are always chatting happily about something," I point out. "You two seem pretty close to me."

"That doesn't mean anything!" Louise says. "It's just a little hard for me to wash my hair by myself so she helps me out. There's nothing else to it."

I mean, Louise's hair is really long so I can buy that. Long, soft and it smells nice. I almost feel like I need to ask what shampoo she uses, I'm really curious. Something with strawberries, I think. I like strawberries. God, I haven't had any in forever. Next time we see her, me and Josette are having a talk. She handles getting the groceries and I really want some strawberries.

"Josh! The door's open already!" Louise yells at me.

"Ah! Sorry Strawberry, I was thinking about something," I say.

"S-Strawberry?" Louise seems surprised. "Why am I a strawberry?"

"I like strawberries," I say. "I haven't had any in a long time so I got distracted thinking about that."

Though technically if we're calling Louise a strawberry then I suppose it hasn't been too long.

"Why were yo- never mind," Louise says, shaking her head. "Let's just head on in and get this done and over with. The sooner this gets done then the sooner we can clear our names and go home."

"Or go to my world," I say. "They're both options."

"Either or. Come on."

Louise and I push pass the doors and walk into the Founder's Castle. Ah, this hallway looks familiar. I look around from side to side, keeping a careful eye out. Okay, there doesn't seem to be any sign of Brimir having risen from the dead to take revenge on all who would set foot here.

"You can't honestly tell me that you expected something like that, can you?" Louise asks.

"I have no idea," I admit. "Nothing surprises me anymore. I half expect to meet a ghost any day now, I can't count anything as unexpected anymore."

"Well, I think I can safely say that we won't be encountering any dead people," Louise says. "You've been here before, right? Where's this secret compartment you were talking about?"

"The room was kind of big and round, so I assume it was a kind of main hall," I say. "Not that any of that matters considering this is a one way hall. Let's get walking."

With that we head off, deeper into the building on an exciting adventure! As exciting as walking down an abandoned hallway could possibly be. We mostly walked in silence since we didn't have anything to say about the place.

"Hey, Josh," Louise says after a few minutes of walking.

"Yes, Louise?"

"You met the founder, right?" Louise asks. "What was he like?"

"He seemed like a nice enough guy," I say. "I mean, after he got the Staff he became an asshole, but before that he seemed nice enough."

"What do you think happened?" Louise asks. "What changed?"

"The Staff, I think," I reply. "I think after Sasha stabbed him they had a conversation and there was some implication that while he was operating of his own free will, his existing feelings had been amplified by his inability to properly control the staff. Something like that. A classic example of being drunk on power, I guess."

"If that's so, then what does that mean for the Pope? Is he perhaps being manipulated by the Staff as well?"

I think about that for a second.

"I dunno," I answer honestly. "Like I said, Brimir wasn't being manipulated or controlled, it just brought out his inherit jealousy and fear of the elves. Brimir did everything he did of his own free will. I imagine that the Pope probably genuinely does think what he's doing is what's best for Halkgenia. Unfortunately the Staff probably clued him in on the Brimir genocide thing and he got it into his head that that would be the best way of bringing peace. Either way we have to stop him, whether he's controlled or not."

Louise thinks that over for a minute or so. It seems like she just had a horrible idea if her expression is any indication.

"Louise, what's up?"

"N-nothing. Nothing at all."

"Just tell me."

Louise is silent for a second, then stops waking and looks at me.

"Josh, what about you?" Louise asks.

"... Eh?"

"What if you start going insane because of the Apple?" Louise asks. "What if it starts making you crazy like it did to Brimir and the Pope?"

I pull the Apple out of my pocket and look at it.

...

"No, that's stupid," I immediately dismiss the theory.

"H-how is it stupid?!" Louise exclaims. "It did that to the founder and the Pope, what would make you so special?"

"Nothing, I suppose," I say with a shrug. "Think about it though. I've had this thing since we wrapped up the thing with Joseph. I imagine if it was going to do anything to me it would have happened by now."

"But Brimir had the staff for a whole year, and the Pope has had it since he was declared Pope!" Louise exclaims. "You've had it for significantly less time."

"I dunno, I think you're just psyching yourself out," I tell her. "Remember, they both had the staff, and I only have the Apple. Sasha had the Apple for years and I'm pretty sure she turned out well. Even if you don't accept that part, think of it this way. All it does is amplify existing feelings and thoughts." _Probably._ "What would that even do for me?"

"Well..." Louise seems to calm down as she thinks it over. "I guess so. I'm pretty sure nothing you can do would be worse then a few nights ago."

"That was your idea," I tell her. "It was your idea, and you enjoyed it."

"I didn't say I didn't," Louise grumbles. "You're a really crappy teacher though. I didn't learn a thing."

"Poker's all about luck, just like I said," I repeat my lesson from a while ago. "Until you improve that you should probably stay far away from strip cards, got it?"

"I thought playing one-on-one would increase my chances," Louise complains. "I forgot that'd it'd probably increase your chances as well."

"At least the post-game was good," I say, prompting Louise to blush.

"No need to talk about that. Come on, let's keep walking. We're bound to get somewhere important soon."

That dialogue finished, me and Louise keep walking. After a few more minutes we finally reach what appears to be the grand hall. At least, it looks like it could be a grand hall. It's big, round and looks familiar.

"Is this it?" Louise asks.

"I think so," I tell her. "It looks just like it should. In that case the thing should be around… around… Aha!"

"What is it now?" Louise asks.

"I found it!" I say, kneeling down onto the floor and examining the little slot that looks a lot like a place you'd stick a Piece of Eden. "So now all I do is put the round peg in the round hole, right?"

"Why are you asking me?!" Louise asks exclaims. "You're the one who knows what's going on!"

"I'm right here, no need to yell," I say, my ears not quite recovered yet. "Okay. Let's give it a shot."

I pull the apple out of my Apple out of my pocket and briefly toss it up and catch it. Let's give this our best shot. I put the Apple in the slot and see what happens. No grand lights, nothing that would stand out. A small trapdoor just opens up next to the trigger.

"What an anticlimax," I muse. "You could just stick any old ball in there and pop it open! What's the point of even using the Apple then?"

"Does it matter?" Louise asks. "Just grab the mirror and let's get out of here before something happens like it always does."

Fine you damn pessimist, I'll grab the stupid mirror. I reach into the trapdoor and start fishing around. Hmmm. Nothing, nothing no… wait, I think I felt something. It's lying flat on the ground which is annoying, but I think I can still get it. I grab the object and pull it out. I stand up and walk over to Louise, examining the object in question. I take the time to blow some of the dust off the thing.

"Thing's dusty as hell!"

"It's been there for 6 millennia, it would be more surprising if it was perfectly clean," Louise points out.

"I guess. But what's the point of a mirror if you can't see anything out of it?" I ask.

"What indeed."

"Oh for ****'s sake, what the hell are you doing here?!" I wheel around and point at Julio who showed up right the hell out of nowhere.

"I simply thought I'd welcome our guests to the home of our Founder. After all, this is a most holy site, is it not? It simply wouldn't do for someone of my position to let you wander around hopelessly and mucking about with holy artifacts such as this," Julio says, spinning the Apple of Eden on his finger as he does so.

"… Shit."

"It's okay," Louise says. "He's doesn't have Their blood so he can't use the Apple, right?"

Oh. I don't how Louise knows if that's true, but if nothing else it's a nice bluff.

"Oh, is that how you see it?" Julio asks, grasping the Apple firmly. "Since I am not a member of any royal family and thus not descended from the founder I cannot possibly be like you or His Holiness? Your familiar is proof that such a set of circumstances is not the only way people like me could use the Apple. Unfortunately, you are right. I hold no such thing in my body."

Louise and I both sigh in relief, a lot of built up tension leaving our bodies simultaneously.

"However, using such a simple object should be no problem for the master of magical objects and familiar of Void, Myoznitnirn, should it?"

The Apple glows brightly along with the set of runes etched into his forehead. Eight different Julios are surrounding the original. Unlike when Brimir tried that trick, Julio isn't even bothering to try and trick us. The original is the only one holding the Apple, the rest are all holding a sword.

"I call bullshit!" I shout, point at Julio again. "What the hell's this 'Mew-mew' crap? Sheffy died like a week or two again when she blew up that fire stone and killed Joseph! What, are you her reincarnation or some crap like that? Is that it?"

"No, it's because he's my familiar."

… No. No no no no no. I refuse. I absolutely refuse to believe it. Where was the foreshadowing? The hints? The absolutely anything that would even _begin_ to show that this could be possible?!

"J-Josette? What are you talking about?" Louise asks. "And why are you here? Weren't you supposed to be working with Emily?"

"This is more important," Josette says. "I had a feeling he would be following you, and I had to be here. Emi doesn't know I'm here, though."

"How nice to see you Master," Julio says with a bow. "What brings you here this fine day."

"Don't play dumb with me, Julio!" Josette cries. "You know why I'm here. Why are you doing this? This is madness!"

"It's what needs to be done," Julio says. "I have complete faith in His Holiness. If he decrees that this is what must be done, then I will help him do it. I was his familiar first, after all."

"Back up a second you two!" Louise says. "Wh-what does that mean? How can Julio be his familiar?"

As much as I'ld like to pipe in here with and "Oh, it's obviously because bullshit," but I don't know either. I'm still too pissed off about this turn of events. This is so stupid.

"It's because I'm a void mage, just like you, Louise," Josette says. "I'm sorry for lying about everything."

"Everything?" I ask. "What else could there possibly be to lie about?"

Josette pulls her wand out of her pocket and gives it a brief flick. A small glimmering effect surrounds her, and her appearance changes. What does it change to, dare you ask? Don't ask. Don't.

"… I'm done," I announce. I turn and head for the exit. "Have fun you three, this has gotten far too stupid for me."

"W-wait!" Josette yells at me. "You can't go yet! What do you expect to happen if you just walk out on this?"

"I don't care Tabitha! You lost the right to tell me what to do! All of you did! I don't even care anymore!"

Yeah, Josette turned into Tabitha. She didn't have the glasses but was otherwise a perfect mirror of the stoic, little book-lover. What's next?

"I'm not my sister!" Josette says. "She doesn't have anything to do with this!"

… Sister. Goddamn sisters. Someone kill me, this day just keeps getting stupider and stupider. Damn everything. Just… Just damn everything.

"So you see how I can use the Apple now?" Julio asks, his face as smug as it's ever been. "As Myoznitnirn my ability to control magical artifacts and status as a Void familiar are enough to fool the Apple of Eden into letting me control it. I can do that, as Josette is a void mage of Gallian blood and summoned me in the past."

"You don't have to sum it up," I tell him. "I already know that this whole thing is stupid. I hate this. I hate everything."

"This… This is all a lot to take in," Louise says.

"I don't think I'll give you that chance," One of the Julios says. "After all, you and your group are the only ones who could possibly stop His Holiness's plan. We can't have that, can we?"

"I won't let you do this," Josette says.

"And what could you hope to do?" One of the Julios asks. "My apologies, but you aren't the most powerful of mages. It would take a lot more then what you are capable of to stop me."

*BANG BANG BANG ETC.*

All but the original Julio disappear following the hail of bullets.

"How about that?" Emily asks, her pistols smoking. "That about good enough?"

"Neither of you got anything done?" I ask. "I mean, I'm grateful you showed up when you did, but didn't you have a job to do?"

"Well when I see my friend abandoning her position, I have to tag along, you know?" Emily says, putting the pistols away and pointing her sniper rifle at Julio's stupid face. "Wanna make a move? I can't say I would recommend it."

Four on one. How's he gonna worm his way out of this one? We all know that he will, the question is how he's going to do it.

"It appears I am outmatched here," Julio says, smiling that smug smile he always does. "Of course with the Apple and my status as two different familiars of Void, very few situations could result in me being outmatched. Allow me to demonstrate."

***CRASH***

Oh, yeah, sure, call a dragon. He can do that, no objections here, not gonna hear me complain. Nope, not at-

"Freaking bullshit!" I cry.

"Much better," Julio says. "Does this seem a bit more fair?"

"No! No it doesn't!" I yell. "Such shit!"

"Josh, not the time!" Louise growls at me.

"Perhaps you'd all like to deal with my friend here?" Julio asks. "Don't worry. I'm sure he won't be too rough with you. He's actually a rather calm fellow. That is, unless I were to ask him to attack. Then he's incredibly vicious."

Daaaaaamn iiiiiiiiit.

"Now then. Want to make a move?" Julio asks, smirking once more. "I can't say I recommend it."

I hate this guy. I really hate him. Complete hate. Now the situation has changed. I don't think any of us could fight off a dragon. So. How are we going to get out of this one? I mean, I know we will, the question is how are we going to do it?

"Any ideas?" I ask our group.

"I got nothing," Emily says, her sniper rifle still trained on Julio.

"I can't think of anything," Louise says.

Josette doesn't say anything. Whatever bravado she had earlier evaporated when Puff blew through the walls. I don't blame her. This is a pretty big dragon.

"Nothing?" Julio asks. "How disappointing. Very well. I suppose this is the end."

"Leave big sis's friends alone!"

HELL YEAH, SLYPHID. BEST DRAGON EVER. DRAGON OF THE YEAR EVERY YEAR. So yeah, Slyphid popped by and knocked Julio's dragon out the other wall. So much for the most holy site. I won't miss it.

"Slyphid?" Louise asks. "What is she doing here?"

"Aw, come now Louise, I thought you'd be more happy to see us."

"Kirche? Tabitha?" Good, Emily seems just as confused as we are. I don't blame her. Shouldn't these two be getting a crown for Tabitha? I don't know or care anymore.

"Sorry for dropping by unannounced," Kirche says. "We heard about what was going on and just had to visit."

"Concerned," Tabitha adds.

"But Tabitha, aren't you supposed to be crowned?" Louise asks. "What happened to that."

"Unimportant," Tabitha says.

"You didn't hear this from me, but I practically had to restrain Tabitha when she heard about the trouble you guys go in," Kirche whispers to me. "The poor girl nearly died of worry."

"You came just in time," Emily says. "We certainly needed the help."

"Irukuukuu was happy to help!" Slyphid's joins the group in her human form. Still no clothes, but I've passed the point of caring. No one else seems to care either, so why should I?

"What happened to the other dragon?" Josette asks, finally speaking up.

"Don't worry, Irukuukuu knocked him right out!" Slyphid says, punching the air and mimicking a boxer. "He's gonna sleep for a while, so don't worry!"

Wow. Slyphid's a badass. That was a pretty freaking huge dragon. She must have some kind of perk that grants +10 during sneak attacks. That's cool. I wonder if I can convince her to give that to me, I could use something like that.

"How aggravating." Success! We pissed of Julio! I consider this day a victory. "It appears that I must take my leave here. Until next time we meet."

"Julio, wait!" Josette yells at him.

There he goes. So much for waiting. Dude can move fast when he wants to.

"Aww, the party's over already," Kirche laments. "How disappointing. I was hoping for a little more fun then that. Oh well. I suppose those guys won't get to have their shining moment after all."

Those guys?

"We came as fast as we could!"

"We're not too late, are we?"

"Oh hey, Momo and Guiche, what brings you guys to Romalia?" I ask.

"Did everyone just decide to show up?" Louise asks. "What are you all even doing here?"

"We're on a mission from Her Majesty, Queen Henrietta," Guiche proclaims proudly. "We've been sent to help rebuild relations with Romalia following the treason of the three Tristain assassins... Officially of course."

"Really, we're just here to help you guys out," Mmo translates. "Her Majesty was devastated when she heard the news. She sent for us and asked us to come here and to help settle the whole affair. Colbert's on the Ostland, by the way. He flew us over here."

"I guess we know where we're meeting next," I say. "Let's go. We've got a lot to catch everyone up on. You especially, Josette. There's something I needed to talk to you about in particular."

"Yeah, what's up with the Tabitha clone?" Kirche asks. "She adorable and all, but what's she doing here?"

Tabitha doesn't say anything, she and Josette just stare at each other silently.

"You're right," Josette tells me. "There's a lot we need to talk about."

"Huh? Why so serious? I just wanted to ask you to pick up some strawberries the next time you went shopping. I haven't had any in a while."

"For the love of- forget about the strawberries!" Louise yells at me. "They're just a food!"

A damn good food. Snack. Both? What would strawberries count as? Hmmm. Doesn't matter I guess. Let's disregard that and focus on the talley for the day. We got the mirror, but Julio, and the Pope by extension, has the Apple as well as the Staff. However, we just got a bunch of reinforcements, and I think there's at least one way I can spin losing the Apple into a victory. Just have to play my cards right. For now let's head to the Ostland. We can work out where to go from there.

***Author Notes***

Uncreative: Guys.

Jocelyn: Yeah?

Uncreative: We're almost done with this story.

Jocelyn: I figured, what with everything that was going on.

Uncreative: The finish line is in sight! This number is subject to change, but there's only four chapters left!

Jocelyn: Holy shit, really?

Uncreative: We're almost done here. But let's not dwell on that. Okay, a lot happened this chapter.

Jocelyn: Julio got the Apple of Eden, and is Josette's familiar. Josette is actually Tabitha's sister as well as a void mage, and the rest of the group dropped by to provide assistance.

Uncreative: Disclaimer: I didn't make up that stuff about Josette. That's all from the novels, I swear. Even the part about Julio becoming her familiar and being Vindalfer and Myoznitnirn. It's still pretty interesting though. I thought so anyway. I considered ignoring that information for this story, but I wanted to use it an excuse for Julio to use the Pieces of Eden. I though it'd be cool.

Jocelyn: The driving impetus for many a decision in these stories. "I thought it'd be cool."

Uncreative: It's gotten me through the story so far. Originally Kirche, Tabitha and the group weren't actually going to show up in this last third of the story. Actually, this last third went through many a revision before settling with what we've got. The first draft was absolutely awful and I'm not bringing it up.

Jocelyn: I think we had that discussion before. What about after that?

Uncreative: After that awful first run, it turned into something resembling what we've got here. Sasha, Brimir and the Pieces of Eden in general played a very small, almost non existent role, and a large part of the story involved trying to rescue Emily and Louise who had been captured and were about to be executed.

Jocelyn: Oh! That prison break near the beginning! Only Big Bro was going to get out originally?

Uncreative: Something like that. Not sure where it would have gone after that, but that was a plot point originally. That was shot down when I decided against it and thought about Sasha, Brimir and the Pieces of Eden a bit more. For what it's worth, I think this is probably the best it could have been.

Jocelyn: Nice attitude. Now, I suppose next chapter is going to be another one of those, "sit around a table and start planning the next strategy" type of thing?

Uncreative: I don't know, I wouldn't say that. Mostly because I don't know how much is going into the next chapter and how much is going into chapters after that. We'll see. I think that's about it.

Jocelyn: See you later everyone! Four chapters left, get hype!


	29. Chapter 27

**Chapter 27: The Third Grand Strategy Meeting and Execution!**

And so our entire group, suddenly substantially bigger, all piled into the Ostland and gathered around a table in the main living quarters. We all took our seats and stared at each other in silence. Pure. Unadulterated. Silence. No one was saying anything. BORING!

"So. Where do we start?" I ask, finally letting something be said. "We have quite a few bits to discuss."

"I-I suppose I should start," Josette says. I think. I'm pretty sure it's Josette, because I don't remember Tabitha ever having a stutter. "I'm sure that's what's on everyone's minds, isn't it?"

"I'm certainly curious," Kirche says.

"Please talk," Tabitha adds.

"I'll make it brief, so I don't waste anyone's time," Josette says. "See, Tabitha and I are twins-"

"So you were separated at birth to avoid throne disputes," Emily finishes.

"We could figure that one out pretty quickly," Montmorency adds.

"It's more common then you'd think," Guiche comments.

"The problem with that now, is how did you ever find that out?" Louise asks. "If you were separated at birth, how did you find that out?"

"I highly doubt you have a memory that stretches that far back," Kirche says.

"Unlikely," Tabitha confirms.

"Th-that clearly wasn't it," Josette says. "How did you even- never mind. See, a few years ago I met Julio."

I could practically hear the sounds of all of us biting our tongues. Yeah, we can all see where this goes from here. I mean, the universe apparently decided to pile as many cliches on her character as possible, so we can just add a few more to the list. We decided to let her talk though, since we're worried we'll scare her off if we predict her life too accurately.

"See, Julio helped me out a lot," Josette says, ignorant of the amount of willpower being utilized in this room. "I never had many people to take care of me, I imagine that should be obvious. Having Julio around was… nice. It was very nice. Having someone look out for me was a unique experience. I suppose it was only a matter of time then."

"Hmm?" Kirche hums. "What was only a matter of time?"

Josette stays silent, a blush slowly crawling along her face. She seems to realize that she's starting to blush, because her blush grows even larger immediately.

_"Oooh,"_ Those of us who hadn't already figured it out finally seem to have caught up. I mean, they didn't verbalize that thought, which is probably for the best.

"A-a-a-anyway," Josette tries to change the topic as quickly as possible. "Julio is the one who told me about my heritage. The void magic was a surprise that came rather recently. I wasn't lying when I said I never got proper teaching and could only cast low-level unaligned spells. Until recently that was all I knew. Even now, the only void spell is the spell that changes how something looks and I'm far too weak to use it on anything that isn't me."

"Well, that's all well and good, but how did you know that Julio was telling you the truth?" Kirche asks.

"He could have lied," Tabitha says.

"I wouldn't put it past that guy," Guiche says. "From what I've heard, he doesn't have a very good reputation."

"Guys," I say, "you're seriously going to ask how she knew if it was true or not? Even I could figure that out!"

"And what, pray tell, might it be then?" Louise asks. "Don't keep us in suspense any longer then we have too, I might die of anticipation."

I point. _"Ooooh." _is once again the prevailing thought. At least it is for Louise. Everyone else is simply confused as to why I'm pointing at Emily who's busy fiddling about with her iPad. She looks up when she feels everyone's gaze on her.

"… What's up?" she asks.

"Emily, how long have you known Josette?" I ask.

"Around three years," she answers. "She was actually the first person I met when I came to Halkegnia. Any meeting with her after that was fought for, tooth and nail, but that first meeting is the only reason I know her."

"And at any point during your stay here has she asked you to look up anything?" I ask.

"… Yeah," she says, not sure where the conversation's going. "She asked me to search for some stuff. Oooooooh. I get it. Yeah, everything she's saying is true. I can vouch for that. She Tabitha's twin, void mage, she and Julio hung out, la di dah."

"Thank you Emi," Josette says. "It wasn't that long ago that Julio convinced me to summon a familiar. I never had one, and he said that he thought I would benefit from the experience. This happened maybe… a week ago? It was before I met Joshua and Louise, but not that long before. I did the ritual, and Julio walked through the summoning portal."

… Lucky bastard, getting a proper summoning that didn't involve falling face first and inhaling a crapton of smoke.

"Josh."

"Yes Louise?"

"You better not be thinking about how he got the better summoning," Louise warns me.

"The thought never crossed my mind."

"Wait," Kirche interrupts. "If you and Julio are a thing then why are you fighting against him? Shouldn't you be supporting him?"

"It's because I'm not a genocidal maniac!" Josette yells. She quickly "eeps," and clasps her hands over her mouth. She says more, but I can't hear her at all since she's whispering so softly a mouse couldn't hear her, and she still has her hands over her mouth.

"Mind repeating that?" I ask.

"I don't like hurting people, that should be obvious," Josette says. "How could I ever go along with a plan that involves the slaughter of so many innocent people? I feel horrible just thinking about it, and I start feeling worse when I realize that I helped them. After all, now Julio is Myoznitnirn and Vindalfar. He can control all magical artifacts, and animals."

"I have two knives on my wrists and a sword," I reply.

"A sword that you never freaking use!" Derflinger yells from the corner of the room. "Come on, I thought we were partners and then you just ditch me the second you pick up those fancy toys! They're nothing compared to me, the mighty Derflinger!"

… I actually almost forgot he could talk. That speaks far too much about me, I feel.

"I'll bring you along next time, don't worry."

"Hmph. You better," Derflinger says before shutting himself inside his sheath.

"Anyway, so that does put us at a bit of a disadvantage," I remark. "Nothing too drastic, I hope. I mean, he's only been Myoz for a week at most, that's hardly enough time to get used to all the intricacies of it. I imagine he still has to work for a bit before fully mastering a particular item."

"Is that how it works for you?" Guiche asks.

"… I dunno, maybe," I say with a shrug. "I never really worked with it so I couldn't tell you."

"Alright, so here's an idea," Montmorency says. "What if we had Tiffania summon something? She's a void mage too, isn't she? We could just have her summon Joshua and that would give us something, wouldn't it?"

"I wouldn't recommend it," Emily says. "It would likely give us Lifdrasil, and I have no goddamn clue how that works. I mean, seriously. I don't blame the books for not telling us about it in more detail, for obvious reasons, but then _F_'s all like 'it's totally a void magic boost that kills the familiar' and I'm all like 'What? That's crap!' especially when the novels pretty clearly implied it was some kind of bomb like thing designed for genocide and… Wh-what's up? Why're you all looking at me like that?"

"You did that thing again," Josette says. "Where you start talking nonsense."

"She does this a lot?" Louise asks.

"Constantly."

"S-sorry, I kind of nerded out there for a second," Emily sheepishly apologizes. "Anyway, I can't recommend Lifdrasil because there's no way of knowing what it would do and we probably don't have anywhere near enough time to test it and find out."

"Besides, Montmorency said something about summoning me, how could we even know that would happen?" I ask.

"Well it's not like it can't happen," Momo points out. "Julio got summoned twice, after all."

"Yeah but… Gimme a sec."

I mean, I kind of had a theory that void summonings only summoned forth potential love interests, but that's a little fuzzy and I don't know if I should being it up. I mean, me and Louise are a thing, Julio and Josette are kind of a thing, Sheffy and Joseph was a one way thing and I'm very sure that Brimir and Sasha was implied to also be a one sided thing. That kind of falls apart when it comes to Julio and the pope, but an exception or two is always allowed. If we follow that theory then there's no way that Tifa could possibly summon me. I can't prove it, but that's not important. I need to make it seem like I was actually thinking about something important right now instead of just dreaming up crackpot theories.

"No, that wouldn't work," I say. "If Emily doesn't know what it can do, then it's probably a bit too dangerous to try out. Besides, where is Tiffania anyway?"

"She's with Darling up top," Kirche says. "They're busy keeping a lookout should anyone decide to investigate the boat with four wanted criminals on it."

"F-four?" Josette asks. "Do you think they'd try to arrest me too?"

"You do know what's going on," Guiche says. "Honestly I'd be far more surprised if they didn't try to incriminate you."

"Well, I suppose if that's the case then the number will be jumping up quite a bit soon," I say, noting the sheer number of people here. It again occurs to me that almost everyone I know in this world is female. I know Guiche and Colbert, but I'm still not entirely convinced about Guiche, and I'm not super familiar with Colbert. I need more guy friends.

"Alright, I suppose we should move on to the next topic of discussion since Josette's probably done," Emily says. "You are done, right Josette?"

"I-I can't think of much else to say, no," Josette confirms.

"Next topic then," Emily says. "Where do we move from here?"

"What's our next move, you mean?" I ask.

"Right. Now they have both Pieces of Eden, and all we have is a dusty old mirror," Louise points out. "Assuming the mirror even works as it's supposed to, how are we even going to get close enough to use it? The Pope can turn the entire city into his own personal army if he wanted to, or create one all by himself if he doesn't feel like doing that."

"Why don't we just burst down his doors and rush right in?" Kirche asks. "Things like that have worked for us in the past, haven't they?"

"No good," I say, shaking my head. "He has too many guards. Even if we were somehow capable of taking out every single guard stationed there, he can create illusion guards which can _hurt_. I know they're not real, but they still pack a punch. I should know, I fought twenty of them. Sort of. It's a weird story. Point is, they do hurt. I don't know if they can kill, but as long as it's a possibility, I'd rather not risk it. Though he won't need to do that since, like I said, he had guards _FREAKING EVERYWHERE! _Everywhere! He had like, three or four guard towers just lying around, and then there was at least ten patrolling the front. I didn't even get to check the back and who knows how many are inside the place?! Freaking ridiculous, that's what that is."

"Okay, so that option's dead," Kirche says, pouting as she does so. "It would have been fun too."

"If it's that heavily guarded then all he needs to do is sit there and wait as his plan falls into place while we flounder about unable to reach him," Guiche says. "Truly a cunning adversary."

"Alright, then what are we supposed to do?" Louise asks. "Anyone have any ideas?"

"It's not that tough," Josette says. "All we need to do is draw him out of there, right?"

"… Wait. Could you say that again, please?" I ask.

"D-did I say something wrong?" Josette asks.

"No, you hit the nail right on the head once again," I tell her. "Josette, you figured it out. We just need to get Pope Asshole to leave his house. He certainly won't leave without his stick, so we can make out move then."

"Okay, that's easy to say," Louise says. "How do we pull that off? It certainly won't be as easy as knocking on the front door. 'Hello, Your Holiness? Could you please come out so we can beat you up and steal your most holy artifact and ruin everything you've worked for for years? Thanks.' I have my doubts that would work."

I mean, it could work. I wouldn't put it past this world to have a stupid resolution like that. Nothing would surprise me.

"Well, if were to do something to catch his attention he would probably come out to denounce us," Josette says. "After all, we're wanted, but he never made any public announcements to that effect. Considering Louise is still considered a saint to some, I imagine he'd need to say something to the public at some point if he truly wants people on his side."

"Josette, keep it rolling, you're our best idea person ever," I say.

"E-eh? Th-that's not tr- nevermind!" Josette seems to be unable to handle compliments. "Alright. Um… If we're going to get his attention we need to do something big and flashy. Something like… Um… I-I don't want to say it."

"Josette, it's probably a better idea then any of us could come up with," Emily says. "What's the worst that'll happen, we ask you to tweak the idea somewhat?"

"Please tell us," Tabitha says.

Josette seems hesitant, but decides to speak up. In a very quite voice she delivers the following line:

"What if Josh tried to kill the Pope?"

… I'm not going to say it. I'm not going to say anything about what I think about that. Instead, I'm going to calmly ask her to explain this in a bit more detail.

"Josette, why do you hate me?" I ask. "Is this payback for the thing with the towel slip-up?"

"N-no, of course not! That was just an accident, I'm at blame for that!"

"Is it payback for the card game during the housewarming?"

"No! That was Emily's idea, I can't blame you for that."

"Don't throw me under the bus!" Emily complains.

"In that case, it's not payback for the shower incident, is it?"

"Wait, what shower incident?" Louise asks.

"Don't remind me," Josette says, blushing an even deeper shade of red then earlier. That one was pretty bad, thinking back on it. For what it's worth, I'm so sorry.

"And, just to be clear, it's not payback for naked apron thing?"

"What exactly _has_ been happening with you two when I'm not looking?" Louise asks, sounding rather suspicious. I don't blame her, that one was far worse then the shower incident. More for Josette then me, but still. Most people would be suspicious after hearing about things like that.

"… Founder, you have given me a lot of reasons to hate you," Josette seems to realize. "Th-that came out wrong, I don't hate you! Wait, that's not the point. See, we need to do something big to both grab the Pope's attention, as well as make him want to actually come out of hiding and publicly announce what a threat you are. What better way to do both of those then to attack him directly?"

"I mean, I guess that makes sense," I say. "There's just one problem I see with it though. Okay, I go and attack the Pope. Then what? My intent clearly isn't to actually kill him, so what do I do if I make it to him, just run off? And what if I get captured, pray he doesn't off me on the spot?"

"That's easy," Josette says. "You said yourself that there's tons of guards there, correct? All you would need to do is evade them long enough to get to the pope, then stall until the guards show up. That'll provide an excuse for you to want to escape, you can lose the guards and run back to the safehouse. I'm sure you can do that. And if on the off chance you do get captured, I imagine he'll want to hold a public execution for the nation's most wanted criminal. That'll allow us a chance to strike at the Pope and save you in the process."

I mean, yeah, it sounds pretty good, but I'm not sure. I still think this is her getting revenge for that naked apron thing. In the little over a week I've known the shy and reserved Josette, that was the first time I've seen her get _seriously pissed_. She was _not_ happy with me. She apologized later for losing her cool, but I still thought I was going to die. It wasn't my fault, I swear! I'd recount the incident for your pleasure, but in honor of Josette's privacy and out of a sense of self-preservation, I shall abstain.

"Okay, then what can the rest of us do?" Kirche asks. "We came all this way, I'm not leaving as soon as we got here!"

"We're helping," Tabitha says.

"And do I have the job for you!" Emily says. She puts her iPad down on the table and opens up what looks like a map of Romalia. How she got this map on her tablet I will never know. I doubt she downloaded it from the Halkegnia wiki. I mean, all I've got is an iPod I use to listen to the Blazblue soundtrack on repeat when I'm walking my dog, I'm not a tech expert so who knows what she managed to pull off.

"Here's the layout of the city," Emily explains. "Thanks to Josette and Louise spying around a bit earlier in our stay, we know that there tons of guards stationed around the city on high alert. More specifically, they were able to locate quite a few guard hideouts."

"You mean, all the places they've been stationed?" Momo asks.

"Not all of them," Louise says. "At least, I assume there's more. I refuse to believe that we found all of them. When there's as many people on the guard force as there are, I simply will not believe that the six locations we've found are all of them."

"But that's really all we need," Emily says. "That's going to be our job, neutralize the guards. That'll reduce the overall guard force and make it far easier for us to move around, as well as reduce the chances of getting caught. They can't catch us if they can't call on their friends to help, right?"

"That… Certainly makes sense," Montmorency says. "Though I have to ask, how are we supposed to 'neutralize' what are likely highly trained and heavily armed guards? What does neutralize even mean?!"

"You know, make sure they're not a threat," Emily says. "Tie 'em up, put 'em to sleep for a bit, I don't really know, I don't care. Freestyle. We really only need them out of commission for a few hours at most while Josh does his thing against the Pope. Nothing permanent or even that long lasting at all."

"I see. Okay, that sounds pretty good!" Kirche says. "How do we split up who goes where? You said there were six, right?"

"Louise can take station one right about here," Emily says, pointing to a spot on her map. "Josette, you can get this one not too far away from it, right?"

"I-I'll do my best!" she says.

"Tabitha, Kirche, you can take hangout three, right?"

"Easily," Tabitha says.

"No problem for the two of us," Kirche says with a wink for added flair.

"Momo-"

"It's Montmor… Forget it. You guys win. Momo's fine," she surrenders.

"Momo, you and Guiche can take care of this one over here, right?"

"Such a trivial obstacle is no match for the efforts of me and my beautiful Montmorency!" Guiche declares while brandishing his rose/wand.

"Station five can go to Tiffania, and the final one can be handled by Colbert. That sound about good to everyone?" Emily asks.

"Wait a minute," Momo says. "I know why Josh isn't taking any of the stations, he's going to be busy. What are you going to be doing during this whole operation?"

"She's got her own thing to work on," I assure Momo. "Something that she probably should have been done with by now, but considering the interruptions, I'm not going to blame her for this one."

"I think I'll take this opportunity to finish that up," Emily says. "… Wait, we should probably call Tifa and Colbert down and fill them in on everything that's going to happen. Once we get that done we can get started. Everyone good now?"

"Sounds good. Let's get started."

***Louise POV***

"Okay, this is the station I was assigned, right?" I look around, and I don't see anyone else. Well, I can see Josette down the street and that serves as my visual indicator that I'm in the right place. I pointed this out to her when we were on our mission together, but I still don't know why they have two guard posts so close together. Doesn't matter now, I suppose. I just need to keep them busy, right? I suppose I could cast Explosion and destroy their building. No, if anyone's inside then they get caught in that and explode. In addition to the fact that I don't want to kill anyone, it would be a bitch to clean up. Shoot, I'll need to put a coin in the swear jar later. … Wait a second. Clean up.

I pull the hood tightly over my head. As long as I keep my head low they shouldn't be able to recognize me on sight. I stand right outside their door and start casting the spell. I'm not casting anything particularly complex at the moment so it doesn't take too long. I finish the spell and make sure the result is as intended. Perfect. I turn towards the door and knock on the door. A few seconds later a guard opens the door and looks at me. I keep my head low and avoid contact.

"G-guards! Guards! I saw her! The assassin! I had to alert someone as soon as possible. Thank the founder you were around," I say to the guard, raising my voice a few pitches to disguise it.

"You saw the assassin? Which one and where? Quickly! This is a matter of national importance."

… My ass it is. Dang it! Another coin in the swear jar. I blame Josh, he's been a poor influence on me.

"The Saint of Aquellia. I saw her over there," I say, pointing in a direction. I look over and shriek.

"Wh-what is it Miss?"

"She there! She's right there!"

The guard walks right past me and looks in the direction I'm pointing. His eyes slightly widen when he sees "me" standing around, looking incredulous. He manages to lock eyes with "me" and "I" panic and run off.

"Guards! At arms! The would-be assassin has been located! Come quickly!"

The guards runs back into the establishment to grab his weaponry before running after "me." He's swiftly followed by around seven other guards all similarly armed. I grab one of them by the arm as he's about to run off.

"Mister Guard, will you be able to catch her?" I ask.

"Don't worry, we've dispatched everyone at this establishment, there's no way we can't catch her."

I smile.

"Thank you sir. Good luck!"

The guard salutes me and runs off. Perfect, the place is empty now, right? The illusion spell has probably worn off by now so they're simply on a wild goose chase. I imagine that won't hold them off for very long, they're bound to realize that they lost me quite quickly. That thought in mind, I start chanting immediately. The spell starts building up inside of me as the words pour out of me. When I finish the chant I point my wand at their base and release my magic. There's a small light that slowly grows, and grows before engulfing the entire building. There's an explosion far larger then I intended. I actually get knocked backwards as a result of it.

"I need to work on that still, it seems," I say as I pull myself to my feet. "Still, looks like their building's gone. Even assuming the chase only lasts a few more minutes, they'll be picking up their home for quite a bit longer."

A job well done. I do feel a bit bad though. I just destroyed their house for no reason. … Well, they were going to do far worse to us so I'll file it under acceptable losses. I suppose I should fall back to the safe house before someone come by to check out that huge explosion.

***Josette POV***

*Knock Knock*

The door opens and a guard appears in the doorframe.

"Hello sir," I say with a bow before righting myself and smiling at the guard. "This is a guard's residence, correct?"

"Indeed, there are several guards currently staying here," he says, eyeing me suspiciously. "What of it?"

"I was just curious. After all, I had some information about the supposed assassins that I though might be crucial to the effort to catch them. May I perhaps come in and share it?"

"Information? What kind of information?" the guards seems more suspicious.

"If I told you I knew where they were staying, would that help matters?" I ask. I mean, it's not a lie.

"You know where they are?" the guard seems surprised. "How did you find that out?!"

"If you perhaps let me in I could sit down and explain it to you and your men," I say, biting down my nervousness.

"By all means, please come in," he says, inviting me inside. "You're doing this nation a great service."

If only he knew just what I was doing for Romalia. I'm sure he'll find out in time. That done, I walk into the building with him.

***Kirche POV***

"Oh, is that so?" I ask the guard. "And so, what are you doing to catch them?"

"We've got plenty of guards stationed all over Romalia," the guard tells me. "No matter where they've decided to run, we will find them. Don't worry."

"By the way, what's your friend doing over there?"

I look over at Tabitha, who's quietly whispering to herself in the corner. I turn to the guard and smile.

"Oh, don't worry about her," I dismiss his concerns with a wave. "She's just a worrywart who's busy praying for your success in your capture of those terrible assassins."

"I see," the guard says, nodding in satisfaction. "When she's done, please tell your friend I'm grateful."

"I'd be honored," I tell him.

He opens his mouth to say something, but icicles can't talk. I walk up to the frozen man and tap on the ice.

"Took you long enough," I tell Tabitha. "Is freezing everyone solid really that complex?"

"No," Tabitha says.

"Oh, you just wanted to make sure it was strong enough to keep them frozen for long enough?"

"Precisely. Thanks for stalling."

"Anytime," I say as I ruffle Tabitha's hair a little bit. "Though, you are sure that they'll thaw out eventually, right?"

Tabitha is silent as she ponders.

"Likely."

"Well, we'll check back after Josh is done with his thing. If it looks like they need some help I can thaw them out."

"Understood."

***Montmorency POV***

"That was the best you could come up with?" I ask. "A rock?"

"A large rock that's blocking the entrance!" Guiche tries to defend himself. "That way they can't get out!"

"What if one of them's an earth mage?" I ask. "They could just get out."

Guiche immediately deflates.

"I hadn't thought of that."

Of course not. For all the things Guiche can do right, thinking is not one of them.

"Look, just give me a few minutes and I can whip up another sleeping potion. Remember Gallia?"

"Ah, of course! As expected of my beautiful flower Montmorency," Guiche says. "Simply trick them into drinking some of that and falling asleep for the next few hours! Ingenious! Ah, but Montmorency. How will we accomplish that? Last time we had those dancer outfits as well as the efforts of Kirche, Louise and Slyphid's human form. Now it's simply you and me."

Hmmm. He has a point. I eye Guiche from head to toe, an idea slowly forming in my head.

"Guiche, ever thought about how you would look in a dress?"

***Josette POV***

"Hmph," I sigh to myself as I walk out of the guard's house. "What jerks. At least they're taken care of now."

I look back over my shoulder and see all the guards knocked out and tied up on the floor. That should hold them until after Josh is done with his part of the plan. Better head back to the safehouse for now.

"Next time, behave," I tell the unconscious guards before walking off. "And learn to keep your mouthes shut."

***Emily POV***

"Excuse me, sir! Could I have a chat with you for a second?" I say as I run up to a random stranger.

"Hmm?" he asks. "Who are you?"

"Name's Emily, nice to meet you. See, I was wondering what you thought about the current state of affairs."

"What, you mean the whole thing about those terrorists trying to kill the pope?" he asks, to which I nod. "I mean, what's there to think about it? Either they tried to kill him or they didn't. I don't know why anyone would lie about something like that, but it doesn't affect me, does it?"

"I see, I see."

"What's that thing you're holding?" he asks.

"This? It's an ancient artifact that allows me to record people's words and play it back to them," I explain.

"What, like a scribe writing down people's words?" he asks. "Not very impressive for a magical artifact."

"It's a little better then that. Listen."

I press play, and the man's words are played back, exactly as he said them. The man certainly seems surprised at that. TAKE THAT! Modern technology wins again!

"That's incredible," he says. "I haven't seen anything like that. How'd you get something like that?"

"Isn't it obvious?" I ask, look at him from over my shoulder as I walk away. "I'm the Shadow Broker. I can't run the largest information network without at least this, can I?"

Okay, one down, let's try to get some others done. I run off before the guy could question anything else. Now, where else in this city should I head for?

***Josh POV***

Siiiiiiigh. I'll say it again, sigh. No point in complaining about it anymore. I'm just going to get this over with so we can move on to the thing where he gets out in public and we attack and solve everything and get this done and over with.

That thought in mind, I walk up to the door of the Pope's mansion/house/chapel/whatever, and knock on the door. The door opens up, and I see Catherine standing in the doorway.

"… Oh come on," I say.

***Author Notes***

Uncreative: Three more! Only three more!

Jocelyn: Wooh! We're on fire! Alright, what happened here?

Uncreative: Everyone talked and got the strategy mapped out and started working on that plan. Okay, Tiffania and Colbert were originally going to get POVs as well, but it just wasn't working out as well as I would have liked, so it got cut. I really hated to lose those, but I just couldn't come up with anything good enough for it.

Jocelyn: That sucks. At least everyone else got something written for them.

Uncreative: There was another one who was going to show up too, that elf Bishadal from the Gallia thing.

Jocelyn: That guy was going to show up? Why?

Uncreative: I dunno. Why not? I thought it would be interesting, but then I couldn't think up anything else so he got cut.

Jocelyn: It's always interesting just how much gets cut out of things like this.

Uncreative: Alright, next chapter we detail the attack on the Pope's house. Again, only three chapters left. Plus an epilogue, probably.

Jocelyn: Epilogues aren't chapters.

Uncreative: Damn right. Okay, see you next time everyone!

Jocelyn: See ya next time!


	30. Chapter 28

**Chapter 28: Best plan ever.**

"… Do I even want to ask?" Catherine asks. "I don't suppose you've come to surrender yourself."

"Do you even have to ask?"

"Of course it's not that easy," Catherine sighs. "Okay then, what are you here for? Wait, how'd you even sneak past all the guards? We have them everywhere!"

"I freaking know! It's annoying! You have to go here, then hide here, distract a few there, I wound up asking a few civilians to help me out with that one. They would just walk up and start a conversation and that makes things easier. Oh, this is pretty good actually, now that I think about it. Here, before I forget."

I hand the box I was holding over to Catherine. She eyes both the box and me suspiciously before slowly opening it. Lady, it's not a bomb, you don't need to handle it that carefully.

"You brought a box of chocolate," she observes.

"Yeah, figured I'd try to make up for last time," I tell her. "I made sure to get the extra large box since I figure I have two apologies to make."

"Two? One's for trying to kill His Holiness I assume, but what's the other for?" Catherine asks.

"No, see. I'm not going to apologize for something I didn't do. The first apology is to you for making your job so hard. Being captain of the guard or whatever can't be easy, and I'm certainly not helping with this whole thing that's going on. The second one is because _now_ I'm supposed to go up and slap the pope around a bit and I know that'll make your job even worse."

"D-did you just admit to plotting to kill His Holiness?" Catherine asks, slowly reaching for her wand.

"Not really. See, all I need to do is make it look like I'm going to, that way he'll come out in public and make a speech about how dangerous we all are. Then we can have a big climatic final battle, wrap up all the looses ends and everyone gets a happy ending."

"W-wait, that's your plan? Lure his Holiness out of hiding?" Catherine asks. "Why would you tell me about it then! Are you stupid or something? Now all I need to do is warn Julio and His Holiness about what you're planning and it all fails!"

"... And?"

"What do you mean, 'and?'" Catherine asks, clearly losing her patience. "Did you even think any of this through? What if you fail, get captured and executed? What then? How do you even know His Holiness would fall for your plan and go out into public?"

I mean, we already have a backup plan if I get caught, that's not the concern. Besides, I'm pretty sure the Pope would love to just openly challenge us. I like to imagine that he's busy waiting for something like this so he can publicly denounce us. I don't put it past him at all.

"No real point in discussing it, I suppose," giving her a shrug. "Guess I'll just waltz right on by and chat with-"

My path is cut off by Catherine blocking my way with her wand.

"You really think I would just let you walk by like this when you've already told me your plan to kill His Holiness?"

"No see, I'm not going to kill- screw it. You're not going to listen to me. Believe what you want. I'm taking the chocolates back."

"Wh-what. No!" She says, moving the chocolate box out of my reach. "You already gave it to me, you can't just take it back!"

"Fine, keep the chocolates, I don't care. See you later, enjoy the chocolates. Let me know if you like them, I might need to buy some for Louise. She's still understandably upset about the apron thing with Josette."

"Apron thing? What are- hey, wait! Where are you going?"

"The Pope's room," I say, cursing the fact that she finally noticed I weaved right past her. "Don't worry, we're just going to have a chat, the Pope won't have a single scratch on him at the end of the day. Can't promise the same thing for Julio if I run into him, but he won't be dead either."

"Of course he won't! Not while we're here to catch you!" Catherine says to me. She calls out for more guards to assist her so I break into a sprint.

"And seriously, let me know about the chocolates!" I yell back at the guard troop suddenly chasing me.

Okay, first I need to find the Pope's room. Wait, that's second. First I need to get rid of the guards that are probably after me. ... Nope, no "probably" there, they are definitely pissed. Let's see, including Catherine I count around five guards. That's it? Lame. They shouldn't be that hard to lose. Let's head for the second floor. If the Pope's room is going to be on any of the two floors in this building, it's going to be the top one, right? So what I should do is go up there, lose the guards and then sneak into there. Perfect! Okay, where are the stairs? If I run down this corridor and dodge down here. I need a distraction. I knock over a vase as I run past it in the hopes of it slowing them down even a fraction of a second. Don't know how it'd do that, but I can dream. Maybe if I throw the next vase _at_ the people chasing me... Hmmm. Wait! Crap, I passed the stairs! I do a quick about-face and rush for the stairs. The guards were more or less right on my tail, so I weave through the small crowd of them on my way there. While doing that, I accidentally elbowed this poor guard in the face.

"Sorry Miss!" I call out as I dash up the stairs. "I'll bring another box of chocolates later!"

Okay second floor, lady's perfume and lingerie. ... Probably not. Maybe not. Hopefully not. Anyway, the guards are still on my ass and I need a break. Hey look! A conveniently open door! This couldn't possibly be a trap, could it? I need the break anyway, so let's chance it. I head for the open door, run into the room, shut the door behind me and lock it. Um... Okay, I don't think the guards noticed me so I probably have a little free time.

"Um... Partner?" Derflinger calls out from his sheathe.

"Yeah man? Say it quietly though, I'd hate to be found out because my sword can talk."

"Oh, I'm sure you don't need to be worried about that."

Oh for ****'s saaaaaaeey, this is a pretty nice room. Nice, spacious, empty, a good closet. Well, it's a lot bigger then a closet. You could hold a wrestling match in here. What room did I step into? Maybe Julio here knows, but I don't want to ask him.

"You could have told me earlier, Derflinger," I complain.

"You're not pinning this one on me!" He complains. "I was going to warn you!"

"Your sword did make an attempt," Julio says casually. "Now, to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

"Just stopped by to talk with Pope Asshole the first," I respond. "He around?"

"Were you perhaps hoping to surrender yourself?" Julio asks. "I would hope not. That would be a rather anticlimactic way to end this, wouldn't you say?"

"A bit sucky, sure," I agree.

"Unfortunately, His Holiness is not here," Julio tells me. "He left earlier today to give a sermon at a local church. Whatever business you have you can pass onto me and I'll tell it to His Holiness."

"I mean, I really only came here to punch someone in the face, so I'm okay with it being you," I say, cracking my knuckles. "If I punch you in the face, think you can pass _that_ on to the Pope?"

"Not as eloquently as you could yourself, I'm sure," Julio says, a hand going to the sword hanging at his side. "Though shall we give it a shot?"

Before I can answer, the door starts rattling. Damn it, I am not dealing with Julio, Catherine and a crap ton of guards at the same time! Get in line, damn it!

"Open up!" Catherine yells. "We know you're in there! You have no chance of escaping!"

"Stand down, Ms. Medici," Julio calls back to her. "I shall deal with the assassin myself."

"Sir Julio?!" Catherine seems surprised. I don't know if it's because of what Julio said or the fact that he's here at all. I don't know. There's a lot of things I don't know. "V-very well. We shall wait for your victory out here. We'll arrest him properly when you're done."

"Oi, Catherine! You tried the chocolates yet?" I ask.

"Wh-what. No, of course not!"

"Can you do that please?" I ask. "I need to know if I should buy them on the way back."

Silence for a little bit.

"They're pretty good actually," Catherine remarks, sounding surprised. I can hear some of the other guards murmuring in agreement. That's good to hear. That's really the only thing I needed to know on this trip, so I'm glad I can consider it a success.

"You brought chocolates?" Julio asks. "What odd behavior for an assassin."

"I have a name!"

"What odd behavior for you, Joshua," Julio corrects. "Do not worry Ms. Medici, this will be over soon and you'll be able to arrest him to your heart's content."

"Understood Sir Julio," Catherine says. "We'll be waiting here."

"What if I win?" I ask Catherine.

"Good luck Sir Julio," Catherine ignores me.

"Fine, **** me I guess," I say turning to Julio. "I suppose I should ask. Do I need to worry about the Myoz runes coming into play?"

"Fortunately, you do not," Julio concedes as he unsheathes his sword. "The only magical object I've been able to acquire is the Apple of Eden, and that is currently in possession of His Holiness. This shall simply be a one on one dual between swordsmen. Shall that suffice?"

I dunno, would it? I don't much care either way, I need to kick his ass one way or the other. Alright, let's do this. I unsheathe Derflinger and get ready for the fight.

"Hey, partner," Derflinger says.

"Yeah? What's up now?"

"I have a really bad feeling about this," he tells me. "Be on guard."

"Come on, what's the worst that could happen?" I ask.

"I don't know, I'd listen to your sword if I were you," Julio tells me. "Are you that confident in your chances?"

"Yes," I tell him.

"Then allow me to ask you some questions. Which of us is more naturally attuned to weaponry?" Julio asks me.

"… Me?" I ask.

"Correct," Julio says. "You are indeed Gandalfar and a natural fit to wield any weapon you come across. I am simply a soldier who's been fighting for years. Keeping that in mind, which of us has more experience wielding weaponry?"

"… You?"

"Correct again," he says, still smirking. "Here I am, a soldier serving the Pope himself, having seen countless battles and fought countless far more skilled soldiers and emerged victorious. There you are, a child swing a sharp stick and relying on abilities not even his own to carry him through his confrontations. Without using anything resembling strategy or skill. Weighing those odds against each other, it should be obvious who the winner will be. Still feel confident about your chances?"

"Yes," I tell him.

Julio actually stops smiling and seems genuinely shocked for a second there. I didn't say anything that weird, did I?

"And what, pray tell, allows you to say that?" he asks. "I certainly don't see why that's a viable point of view."

"I dunno, I have a hard time seeing you as something to be wary of," I tell him. "Maybe it's this weird mental thing since I've never seen you be a threat to anything ever."

Wait, the last time I thought anything like that was against freaking Vergil in that pretty-good-reboot-but-not-as-good-as-the-original-triliogy-because-DMC2-never-happened Devil May Cry. He was a completely wimp who did jack shit, then you fight him and it's all "Damn everything! This guy's an asshole!" Then you get to the DLC and you're like "Hell yeah, playable boss characters, let's wreck everyone! … Shit, I'm weak as hell. Damn everything." What was I thinking about again? Oh yeah, I'll probably get wrecked if I'm not careful. Perhaps I should take him a bit more seriously. Or I can just rush him. If I die I have like, infinite continues, right? The lives system died out years ago, I don't think I have anything to worry about. Alright let's do this, Leeeeero- I'm not doing that.

I step forward and swing Derflinger at Julio who in turn casually blocks with his sword. I swing again, and he parries before thrusting at me. I sidestep the sword then step in to attack. Julio backs up to avoid Derflinger, the tip just barely missing. Way to be a stylish ass.

"Impressive," Julio says. "I actually didn't expect you to last this long. Perhaps I underestimated you?"

"Well I overestimated you," I tell him. "I mean, I expected you to not suck so much at this."

"Perhaps I should step up my game a bit?" Julio asks. "I'd hate for you to be disappointed."

Julio steps forward and swings his sword at me. I dodge and retaliate, but he parries that at well. The duel keeps up for a bit longer, swords clashing, blows exchanged, sparks flew. Eventually we both take a step back and pause. I pant heavily, trying to catch my breath while Julio doesn't seem to have even broken a sweat. What a dick.

"Oh dear, are you still doing this?" Julio asks. "Don't you perhaps think that this farce has gone on for long enough?"

"Farce? *pant* That what *pant pant* this is?" I ask.

"The only word I can think of," Julio says. "Don't you think the victor has been decided already? You look ready to collapse."

"My stamina may have hit zero, but my HP is still maxed out asshole," I tell him. "I haven't gotten a single scratch so ha!"

On cue, Julio swings his sword, cutting a neat line right across my cheek. I try to attack him, but he parries my blade and slices my leg, putting himself behind me before he stabs me. The tip of the sword didn't go in that far, but I JUST GOT FUCKING STABBED AND IT FREAKING HURTS, OKAY? Julio removes his sword and I fall to my knees because damn everything, getting stabbed hurts. I don't know if you've ever been stabbed, maybe I'm just a wuss for not being able to take a stabbing. Julio takes this time to calmly walk in front of me. He looks down at me, looking even more smug then usual.

"Do you see now?" Julio asks. "There is simply too big of a difference in skill. I don't know how you could possibly think you could win this?"

"Because I'm not dead yet," I tell him, pulling myself up. "As far as I'm concerned, that's enough for me."

"How persistent," Julio mocks. "Very well. Round three, I suppose?"

Julio readies his sword, and I ready Derflinger in turn and start thinking. _Status check: injuries received: a cut on my cheek, a slash across my leg and a stab dangerously close to my spine. Injuries given to the opponent: none. Stamina: I'm tired as hell, and he seems like he could run a marathon. It seems that even with the gandalfar stat boost, Julio still has the advantage in speed, likely due to his years of experience. I'll start by taking the advantage, swinging Derflinger at him. Julio will likely block it, and I should be able to react quickly enough to swipe at him. He'll likely dodge it, but I should still be able to at least graze him. After that, I should-_

"Attempt to swipe at me again?"

"… Excuse me?" I ask Julio.

"After slashing my cheek you'll likely attempt to swipe ate me, would you not?" Julio asks.

… DAMN EVERYTHING! CAN FREAKING EVERYONE READ MY GODDAMN MIND!?

"Your mistake isn't assuming that everyone can read your mind," IT'S AN EASY FUCKING MISTAKE TO MAKE. "Your mistake is being so predictable. After all, you aren't the only one who can play that game, you know."

I raised my eyebrow to signify my confusion. He clears his throat and continues.

"You swipe at me, and I block, stepping in and hitting you in the stomach with the hilt of my sword. I attempt to follow up with a swing of my sword-"

"Which I lean back to avoid, come on, be a bit more creative then that. I thrust forward to try and stab you-"

"Which I counter by locking our blades together."

"I step back to escape the deadlock, and you follow up by chasing me and spinning around for a roundhouse slash."

"Crude, yet effective. It's unlikely to hit though. You'll likely dodge away very quickly, then stumble as you are not in the best of shape. I'll take this opportunity to follow up and attack. You'll make a desperate block-"

"Which'll likely knock me over, taking the brunt force of that combined with my injuries will likely make it hard to do much in response. You'll step back in-"

"And finish the job," Julio says, smirking. "Well then. Shall we attempt to put those events into practice?"

…

***BANG***

"AH!" Julio cries out in pain falling over and grasping his foot.

Also an alternative.

"Kind of shot yourself in the foot with that question," I tell him, blowing away some of the smoke emanating from my hidden gun. "Sayonara!"

With that, I use the distraction to turn around and burst out the door to the room. The sudden opening of the door startles the guards and allows me the precious few seconds I need to get out. I run off as much as I can considering my current state of affairs. Oooh, window! I am not making it to the stairs, to the window! I hobble/run over to the nearest window and look out it. It's only the second floor, this probably won't kill me.

"Stop, assassin!" Catherine yells at me, her guard troop slowly approaching.

"See you soon!" I yell at her before breaking the window with Derflinger and jump out. As soon as I hit the floor I try and roll to minimize damage. All I accomplish is sending myself tumbling end over end and ending up flat on my back. "Aaaaah, oh god, that was such a shitty idea, damn everything aaaaaaaaaa. I'm okay. I'm okay. I can barely move, but I'm fine. Let me just… pull myself up and… and… Aaah, god this hurts. Okay, can't move, not yet. Break time. Well, not break time because I didn't break anything. Probably. Still bleeding though."

"Are you insane?!" Catherine yells from up on the second floor.

"No, I'm in pain," I weakly croak back at her.

"Mmm. Guards! Grab a medic and head downstairs, he seems heavily injured," I can barely hear Catherine start ordering her men around. I appreciate the help but… I'd rather… not get caught.

I manage to pull myself to my feet after much effort and start limping away.

"You okay partner?" Derflinger asks. "That seems like it could have gone much better."

"I'll be fine," I tell him. "Just got a little messed up. Really messed up. I got stabbed and it hurts, so I decided to jump out a window, I'm not in a good place right now. I'm just gonna limp back to the safe house."

"If you say so," Derflinger says. "Sure you don't want to sit down and rest for a bit?"

"If I sit down I'm worried I won't get up again," I tell him. "I'll keep walking."

"If you insist."

***Scene Break***

I limped towards the door to the safe house and opened it up.

"Sounds like he's finall- holy shit! Josh, what happened?" Emily asks, running up to me, followed by everyone else.

"I got wrecked, that's what happened," I say, hobbling over to the couch to sit down. "I went there, slipped past the guards, found Julio, he told me the pope wasn't there so we fought and he beat me pretty badly. I shot him in the foot and left. Mission accomplished as far as I'm concerned. I'm going to bed. Good luck everyone, wake me up when the Pope decides to make a public appearance."

"N-no, don't go to sleep yet!" Momo yells at me. "Let me heal you first, then you can rest."

That works, I suppose.

"Alright, how's everyone else doing?" I ask as Momo gets to work. "I know I can call my job a success and considering I encountered like, no resistance I can assume everyone else did fine as well?"

"All the guards we knew of were delayed considerably," Josette says. "They'll probably be back together by the end of the day though, so that's something to keep in mind."

"So if we're going to make another move we'll need to be careful about it," Louise says.

"I'd sure hate if we got caught before staging our grand finale," Kirche says. "We have to go out with a bang."

"Could we just settle this issue quickly?" Tiffania asks. "I don't want anyone to get hurt."

A little late on that one, but I understand the sentiment.

"So know we just have to wait for His Holiness to issue a public statement?" Guiche asks.

"Pretty much," Emily says. "He probably will make a huge show of it, that's for certain. We just need to wait until he does and then we have our chance. I'll keep an ear to the ground, see what pops up."

"And the other thing?" I ask.

"Taken care of," Emily says with a smile. "Word spreads quickly, you know."

"Well done," Tabitha tells her.

"Alright, time to wait," I tell everyone. "We all did really good, but we're heading for the climax now, we'll hash out the specific details when we get them, but for now we can all take a well deserved rest. Dismissed everyone."

"Who named you the leader?" Momo asks.

"Myself. The votes were unanimous. And singular."

"Of course," she deadpans. "Doesn't really matter I suppose."

"As long as we can stop the Pope from committing genocide, I don't think that really matters," Louise says.

And with that, the meeting came to an end and we all headed for our sleeping spaces. Except Louise who headed for my sleeping space. Well, it's her's now as well since we needed to double up on some rooms to accommodate all the guests.

"Do you feel good about our chances?" Louise asked as we both sat on my bed.

"Yes, actually," I said. "The spar with Julio was just a minor fluke, probably won't happen again. Except it will. Probably. I'll figure something out. Anyway, from now on it's easy. We just need to go fight the Pope, steal the Staff and Apple and we'll be good."

"You make it sound so easy," Louise says. "Well, if you're the one saying it then I'm sure it won't be too bad."

"Good to hear. Oh! Almost forgot."

I reach into my pocket and pull out a small box before handing it to Louise.

"You got me chocolates?" She asks when she opens the box.

"I mean, I got some for Catherine to apologize for making her job so tough over the last few days, so I figured I'd get some for you too. They're pretty good, apparently."

"Um... Thanks," Louise says, taking one of the chocolates and popping it into her mouth. "Pretty good."

"So I've heard. Anyway, there's not much we can do now so let's just go to sleep. We'll probably hear of something in the morning, so we can plot out the next step then."

"Right. Good night Josh."

"Night."

With that, we lied down in my bed and went to sleep. Whew. Today could have gone better. Let's hope the second match goes significantly better then this did. I don't want to get stabbed again.

***Author Notes***

Jocelyn: So, two chapters left?

Uncreative: So I hear I'm not quite certain if that means two chapters plus an epilogue or if next chapter will be the last chapter with the second chapter being an epilogue. I don't know, that depends on how next chapter pans out.

Jocelyn: Right, so what happened this chapter? Big bro got beat up pretty badly, didn't he?

Uncreative: It was a bit worse originally, but I toned it down to make it conceivable that Josh would actually be able to limp away.

Jocelyn: Makes sense. If you got messed up too badly then you wouldn't be able to walk, that's for sure. Speaking of which, Julio's pretty good, isn't he?

Uncreative: I mean, he is significantly more experienced then Josh, it makes sense that he'd be more then a match for our intrepid hero.

Jocelyn: Looking forward to the rematch. Alright, final battle's coming up, I can't wait!

Uncreative: See you all next time.

Jocelyn: By everyone! Two chapters! And an epilogue!

Uncreative: Assuming the epilogue isn't that second chapter.

Jocelyn: Either or. Later everybody!

Uncreative: We're done here.


	31. Chapter 29

**Chapter 29: The End**

It's been a few days since the Pope home invasion. As such, it was time to get ready. Though that's not exactly my job to say that.

"Alright, huddle up everyone!" Emily says. "Time to start getting ready."

"So, it's time to move?" I ask.

"Time to move. We'll talk about it around the table. Let's get going!"

"I hate that maid," Louise says, still asleep in the bed. "Why can't she just let me sleep?"

Not a morning person I see. Either way, we probably should get up and do this. Get it done and over with so I can go home. After waiting for Louise to get dressed, we both headed for the living room and took our seats around the grand table.

"Alright, everyone here?" Emily asks.

"Me and Tabitha are here," Kirche says.

"Present," Tabitha confirms.

"I'm here," Montmorency says.

"Present and accounted for," Guiche says.

"Um... I-I'm here," Josette says.

"I'm also here," Tiffania says.

"Present," Colbert says.

"Ready to roll," I say.

"..." Louise didn't say anything. Louise fell asleep.

"What's with her?" Emily asks. "Rough night?"

"She's just not a morning person, I suppose," I say, as I start poking Louise. "Hey. Wake up. Wake up."

"Mmmm," Louise grumble as she slowly joins the land of the living. "I hate mornings. Why can't the day start a few hours later?"

"We don't have that kind of time," Emily says. "The pope's about to set up his public appearance and he's doing it in maybe two hours."

"Ah, good. I didn't get stabbed for nothing," I remark. "I was getting worried that suffering a wound like that would have just amounted to jackshit."

"Swear."

I pull a gold coin out of my pocket and toss it into the jar we have set up on the table. I'm almost surprised when the coin doesn't slide right off considering how full the jar is at the moment.

"So how's this going to work?" Louise asks. "I don't suppose we're just going to storm the place and go crazy."

"Is that an option?" Kirche asks.

"I'd prefer it if we kept a modicum of subtlety," Colbert says. "It would be difficult for us to take care of Romalia's entire guard force at once."

"I dunno," Emily said. "We're pretty good. Besides, Josh, didn't you pick up a whole bunch of weapons from that vault? Could we use any of those if things get hectic?"

"I'm pretty sure I've heard you refer to them as weapons of mass destruction at least once," Louise says.

"I may have called them that, but really it's only a few assorted guns and swords as a precaution," I say. "I was strapped for time and didn't have any way to transport the bigger and more dangerous stuff."

Except for my trump card, obviously but that stays under wraps until we need it.

"Well, what do you have?" Montmorency asks. "It would still help to know."

"A big badass machine gun, a decent sniper rifle for Emily, new pistols for her as well and some swords for me. I would have gotten more for some of you people, but you all have your magic and stuff so it didn't occur to me."

"I suppose that makes sense," Guiche says. "Why arm myself when I'd be busy commanding my valkyries?"

I mean, sure that makes sense, but I didn't expect you to be here so of course you're not a part of the plan. Speaking of which:

"So what's our plan going to be?" I ask. "I imagine that since the pope himself is showing up they'll be a crap ton of guards and even more people just crowding around. How do we go about this?"

"Hmm. I suppose our first step is getting the innocents out of the way," Emily says.

"It wouldn't be very good if they were caught in the crossfire," Louise agrees. "How do we do that, just shoo them away when things get intense?"

"I don't see why not," Kirche says. "I'm sure they're survival instinct will outweigh their need to stay and watch Josh beat up the pope."

I'd have stayed if I were them, but that's because I have a rather impotent survival instinct.

"Still, I think we should have someone keep an eye on them," Montmorency says. "Just to make sure they all get away safely."

"I can do that," Tiffania offers. "I'm not a very combative person, so I don't know what I'd even be able to do. Escorting people sounds much better."

"I will assist her," Colbert says. "I would rather be helping people then hurting them."

"Fine by me," Emily says. "People are far more likely to listen to someone like you then any of us. Okay, so that's taken care of, the people are safe. How do we deal with everything else from that point?"

"The first point is going to be separating the staff and the pope," I say. "I'd rather appreciate not having to deal with him possibly mind controlling everyone in the city or making an army out of thin air. That's not fun."

"C-Couldn't Emily take care of that?" Josette asks. "She's a good shot."

"I mean, I could probably snipe the staff easily," Emily says. "Shouldn't be that difficult. Assuming I score a good shot it could knock the staff out of the Pope's hands. Pick up after that might be a bit of a bitch, but we can figure that out later. What we need to figure out is how to keep the Pope still for a few seconds. The staff's a smaller target then I'm used to, so I'd appreciate it if you could keep him still long enough for me to do the math needed."

"Dibs on that job," I say.

"If there's one thing you can do, it's annoy people for long periods of time," Louise says, nodding her head in approval.

"Aren't you forgetting something?" Montmorency asks. "If the Pope is going to be there, Julio probably will as well."

"Trouble," Tabitha says.

"I mean, yeah he kind of beat me when we fought but I think I can take the rematch," I say. "I suppose I can handle that. Hell, that's probably be a good way of distracting him. We can work out the finer details when we get there. Once we deal with Julio and separate the staff from the Pope I'll take care of actually destroying the thing. Emily, we'll need you on the ground by that point."

"Right. It'd be pretty difficult to record anything good from the roof," Emily says.

"Okay, once that's all taken care of then all we need to do is use the mirror, steal his magic, give it to Louise, I go home, everyone's happy we're done and I never have to do anything resembling this ever again," I say.

"You sound happy," Kirche notes.

"Damn right," I reply. "This whole 'war and adventure' thing's cool and all but it gets really tiring after a while. I look forward to going home and sitting around doing nothing. I'll drop by on, like, weekends or something so that's something to look forward too. Anyway, are we about set?"

"I think so," Louise says. "Anyone have any last words before we head out?"

"None," Tabitha says.

"Perfect!" I say. "Come on everyone, let's go wrap this up."

***Scene Break***

I look around the crowd, taking note of all the people around. There's a huge crowd, unsurprisingly. Religious figures always draw crowds. I look up towards a roof a fair distance away and see a figure moving on the rooftop. Good, she's ready. I look around, trying to see if everyone else is ready. I spot Louise and Josette near the front of the crowd, Kirche and Tabitha are off to the left, Guiche and Montmorency to my right, and Colbert and Tifania are somewhere behind me.

The Pope walks onstage, his staff in hand, Julio and Catherine flanking him on either side. I should have expected the captain of the guard to be here. That'll make things interesting, if nothing else. A quick sweep of the area shows a bunch of guards around. I couldn't have expected them to still be picking up from a few days ago, but it's still worrying how many guards there are, and could be approaching. Well... I can't count on it, but I would appreciate if some random citizens needed help being escorted off the premises by the guards. Nothing serious, they were just scared and needed help being escorted away from the warzone. Can't count on it, but it would be nice to get some public support. I wonder how I could signal that to anyone who supports our group. The ones and ones of people who support us.

As a side note, before we being the transcription, I'll note that I can completely understand why Emily wants me to keep him still. The Pope seems to be one of those guys that can only talk when he's doing something else simultaneously. He keeps pacing back and forth. He'd make a good vocalist for a rock band.

"My friends and citizens," the Pope begins. "It has come to my attention that a threat has been plaguing our beautiful city. A threat that if left undressed could spell disaster. Recently, a small group of terrorists have decided to act against the interests of Romalia and plot my downfall. These three terrorists, Joshua Springfield, Emily Kimberly Pilgrim and Louise Françoise le Blanc de la Vallière have already attempted to take my life once."

Cries of "bullshit," and "liar," course throughout the crowd and was combated by whispers of "shut up," and "traitors," or "can't believe I trusted them." I question that last one. I understand feeling betrayed by Louise, the Saint of Aquileia and all that, and me a bit since apparently I grew a fanbase, but why Emily? How does anyone here know her? I don't get it.

"I understand that many of you are surprised by this turn of events," the Pope continues. "I too was shocked that people I had considered allies would turn against me like that."

*cough*That's bullshit and you know it.*cough* My comment earns me a few odd glances, but nothing more. ... Really? None of you notice any of the- You know, I don't care. If wearing my hood is all it takes to make me unrecognizable, then of course none of them would notice anything else.

"We put out the wanted signs, as you may be aware," the Pope says. "Unfortunately, it seems this was not enough to catch the perpetrators, or to convince many of you that they truly were as guilty as we said that they were. I am appearing before you today to perhaps alleviate your concerns. It is my regret to inform you that a few days Go, they made yet another attempt to assassinate me. An attempt which once again ended in failure, as you can see."

Crowd reactions are mixed. It seems as if a few people have swapped sides. A few people who supported us seem convinced of our guilt. "If they were innocent, why would they try to kill him again? What bastards!" The other people who switched think that this is simply a publicity stunt. "What proof does he have that there even was a second attempt. How do we even know he wasn't lying about the first attempt?" Hmm. Not sure how I feel about this now. I look back to the rooftop and see that Emily's is lying prone on the rooftop, staring down the scope of her sniper rifle. She notices my gaze and gives a thumbs up. Okay, ready to roll. I whistle loud enough to grab a few people's attention, but quiet enough that the Pope doesn't seem to notice and goes on with his speech. I raise my left hand a bit, then clench my fist. The signal does not go unnoticed, and everyone begins. Louise kicks a guard near her right in the stomach, Guiche grabs subdues one using one of his valkyries and so on. I pull out trump #1, point it in the air and pull the trigger. My brand new and really shiney N7 Typhoon machine gun fires off it's shots in quick succession, attracting everyone's attention.

"Good morning everyone," I say, lowering my gun. "We're today's entertainment!"

"Joshua!" Catherine cries from the stage. She gets ready to pull her wand out, but is stopped by the Pope.

"My, my. What a pleasant surprise," the Pope says, walking towards the front of the stage. "And to what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?"

"Simple," I say, ejecting the heat sink from the Typhoon. "We're here to wrap this up. One way or another. I'd like to end this easily if possible, so let's try this. Simply hand over the Staff and Apple of Eden and we can all walk away from this."

"And I suppose you'd like to take away the gift of Void that the founder bestowed on me?" the Pope asks.

The crowd starts whispering in response. "Void? What's he talking about?" and so on. Wait, _shit_ that's bad. He's trying to pull more people to his side by revealing that he's a "blessed" mage and all that. Smart son of a bitch.

"Like I said, we can all walk away from this," I tell him. "Give up the Staff and Apple, and we'll be able to work out something that doesn't come to that. Otherwise things might get a bit messy."

"For which side?" he asks. "Are you perhaps threatening to begin a massacre to get me to listen to you? Are you threatening these fair-"

"Don't even try that bullshit," I warn him. "I've said like twice that things could be easy. Nowhere in there did I even imply that I wanted to do that. I simply meant that if things devolve into some awful battle then who knows what'll happen."

"I see. And I suppose you have no intention of simply surrendering quietly?" he asks.

"Obviously not."

"Very well, we'll do this the hard way," the Pope says before pointing his staff at me. "Ms. Catherine, if you would be so ki-"

***BANG***

Holy shit, sniper rifles are loud! The shot rang throughout the entire gathering. The bullet collided right with the staff's head, hitting it with enough force to free it from the Pope's grasp and send it skittering across the stage. Now the crowd is starting the panic.

"Tifa, Colbert! Start getting everyone away!" I yell at them as I head for the staff. I'm stopped in my tracks by Catherine. "Oh come on. I don't have time for you today, can we do this later?"

"Joshua Springfield, you are under arrest for-"

"A variety of things, I'll pay bail later Catherine, just get out of the way!" I say as I aim my Typhoon at the ground and unload. I'm obviously not trying to hit her, just scare her off a bit. It works a little as she dodge rolls out of the way, which I use as my opportunity to rush the staff.

"Oh no you don't!"

Then about six golems popped up in front of me.

"Are you fucking serious?! Fine, screw subtly!"

I aim my Typhoon properly this time and tear through the golems like paper. Catherine keeps summoning more and I keep shooting through them. Please, this gun can tear through an Atlas mech, I don't think a small golem will cause much trouble. I shoot out one more then roll, grabbing the staff on the way down. I pop up with the Staff in my hand. I don't even get a chance to think that it was all too easy when I feel a heavy object strike the back of my neck. I fall flat on my face, losing the Staff in the process.

"Great job distracting him Catherine," Julio says as he kneels down next to me and picks up the staff. "I appreciate your efforts."

"Anything for his holiness," Catherine says.

"I'm still here you know," I says, picking myself up off the ground.

"Do you think this is even worth it?" Great, the pope's here too. "You're surrounded and all your friends are busy holding off the guards we have at our disposal."

I look and sure enough, everyone's busy. Kirche is busy fending off some fire mages with spells of her own while Tabitha provides backup in the form of icicles and frost spells. Guiche is commanding his valkyries to hold off more guards and Montmorency is busy using some kind of water whip spell. That's pretty badass actually. Tifa and Colbert are nowhere to be seen, likely helping keep the innocent people at bay with the help of Slyphid to try and keep more people from coming in.

"Well, okay it's a shit situation for me, but there's one thing I'm wondering," I say.

"And what might that be?" Catherine asks, her wand pointed at me.

Out of nowhere, a small explosion burst forth directly in front of the Pope, knocking him backwards. There's a blur of movement as several painful strikes hit Catherine in various vital spots, stunning her long enough for a followup roundhouse to knock her on her back. Julio gets spun around and then slapped with enough force to send him to the floor.

"Now I'm wondering two things. Where did you three go and when the hell did you all get that badass?" I ask Louise, Emily and Josette.

"More or less always been like that," Emily says, scratching her head with the barrel of her pistol.

"And we were helping everyone else with the guards until we saw you were in trouble," Louise says.

"I thought it'd be nice to help," Josette says.

"Thanks a bunch," I tell them.

"Oh, are you assuming this is over that easily?" the Pope as he gets up and walks back over.

"I certainly hope you didn't expect that to end this so easily," Julio says, using the staff as support.

"I hurt everywhere," Catherine says, still lying on the floor.

"Need a hand?" I ask.

"Ah, thanks," she says as she takes my hand and I help pull her up. "H-hey! You're not supposed to do that!"

I shrug.

"Regardless, it matter not what you do or don't attempt," Julio says, taking something from the top of the Staff before handing the Staff over to the Pope. Wait _shit_, again! It was the Apple! Okay, the Pope has the Staff, Julio has the Apple and Catherine has a headache.

"Okay, how's this gonna go?" I ask as my group of four backs up against each other. "I take Julio, Josette, go and do your thing, Emily takes Catherine and Louise takes the Pope?"

"You expect me to fight the Pope?!" Louise asks.

"Yes," I tell her. "Okay, break!"

***Emily POV***

How nice of Josh to give me the one person here who doesn't have some ancient magic piece of mind control tech. Such a kind and caring master.

"You don't have to do this," she tells me. "Why don't you just surrender quietly?"

I rush her, pistols in hand and swing for her face. She blocks with her wand then pushes me away before summoning a small, human-sized golem in front of her.

"We're not surrendering because the fate of the world may or may not be riding on this," I tell her before shooting a whole in the golem's head and watching it crumble away. "Can you seriously think we tried to kill the pope? That we're terrorists?"

"You're not making a good case for yourselves!" she says, launching some disks of Earth at me. I dodge left, then right then flat of the floor. I spin around and kick her legs out from under her to give me time to get myself back to my feet.

"I mean yeah, but think about the first time we visited. You checked us yourself, we didn't have any weapons!" I tell her as she gets up. "How could we have tried to kill anyone?"

"You don't need weapons to kill someone," she counters, creating a sword out of earth. "Though it certainly helps, I'd assume."

As a captain of the guard, it wouldn't surprise if her swordplay is far more dangerous then her spell casting. Most guards aren't mages, so their training regiment rarely takes that into account. She swings at me which I catch with my pistols. I give her a swift kick to the shin and push away to create some space.

"Think girl," I tell her. "Remember the gunshot? The gunshot that we supposedly fired to try and kill Julio or the Pope? Why would we do that if we knew you were just outside and would hear us? And what happened to the gun when you searched us?"

"That's…"

"Stupid, I know!"

I swing my right pistol at her face, and she intercepts with her arm. She points her sword at my stomach and jabs it forward. I just barely twist out of the way. I lose maybe half an inch off my side for my troubles, but it's better then taking the whole sword. I lock her arm with my own and bring her in close for a one-one-one confrontation.

"Lady, we never did anything," I tell her. "Did it simply never occur to you that your Pope and Julio could simply be lying about it to push their own agenda?"

"Does it never occur to you that to me, you're the ones lying to push their agenda?" she asks. "If you're as innocent as you're claiming then why are you doing this? Attacking the Pope to draw him out into the open for a decisive strike doesn't seem innocent, does it? But who cares about that! If the Pope had simply listened to me and not done this then none of this wouldn't matter anyway!"

Wait, she told the Pope about the trap? Wait, Josh was serious when he said he told her all about the plan?! That stupid idiot!

"And that didn't tell you anything?" I ask her. "Ever think that he wanted this to happen? The Pope was trying to set a reverse trap for us. Make it seem like he fell for our trap only to pull the rug out from under us and wipe us out."

"I suppose it doesn't much matter anymore, does it?" Catherine asks. "You're all here, trying to kill the Pope. That's all I need to know."

"We're not trying to kill anyone!" I yell at her.

"It certainly doesn't seem like that to me," she says.

This stupid- argh! I kick Catherine in the stomach, pushing her back a few inches. I point one pistol about 23 degrees to my left, and my other pistol about 118 degrees outwards in the opposite direction. I pull the triggers on both and the bullets come out. Catherine opens her mouth, then shuts it immediately when the sound of two small objects colliding in front of her rings out. She looks down at the ground at the two bullets right there all bent out of shape.

"You see?" I ask her. "If we wanted to kill any of you then we wouldn't even need to try. That left bullet bounced off of five surfaces and would have hit you right between the eyes if that second bullet hadn't bounced off of three surfaces to intercept the bullet and stop them both dead."

"Th-that's not possible," Catherine says, sweating bullets at the fact that she nearly just died. "You can't do something like that. No one is that accurate."

"I never miss," I tell her, not mentioned the fight with King Joseph. The.

"Then… Then that first shot when you hit His Holiness's staff…"

"Exactly what I aimed for," I tell her. "I shot exactly what I intended to, and I could have killed you, Julio and the Pope with one shot if I wanted to, but I didn't because we don't want to kill any of you. We want to stop the Pope from committing genocide, nothing more."

"Genocide…" Catherine mulls the word over in her head for a bit. The weight of what His Holiness is trying to do finally seems to be hitting her full on. "He's…"

The will to fight seems to be leaving her. The tension is slowly leaving her as her stance falters.

"Catherine, we're trying to help here," I tell her. "If we were really as evil as he's been trying to convince everyone we are. If we were then this whole thing would have gone very differently."

"…"

***Louise POV***

"You truly are staging a last stand, aren't you?" the Pope asks. "A last desperate attempt to try and rewrite the history books in your favor?"

"Seems like you're the one trying to rewrite history," I note. "After all, we're not the ones attempting genocide to secure some land that no one even wants."

"They may not want it, but it's what they need," he says. "If only you would realize that then this would be a far simpler effort."

"I don't know, I think you're just a founder would-be."

"Excuse me?"

"You don't get it?" I ask him. "It seems to me like you're just trying to capitalize on what the founder did six thousand years ago. The founder tried to kill the elves and convinced everyone else that they were evil and deserved it, so they called him a hero and he became a legend, a hero, a religious icon! Of course, Brimir failed and died, becoming a martyr in the process and increasing his fame even more. What if you tried what he did and succeeded? It seems to me that you're trying to rewrite history by repeating it. No one likes a copycat, you faker."

"A copycat? A faker?!"

I think I laid it on a bit too thick. He seems upset. Very upset. How unlike him.

"You have the gall to declare me a faker?" he asks. On the surface he seems to have calmed down, but it's clear he's still seething from my earlier comments. "Me, the one who will destroy the threat to humanity known as elves, reclaim the holy land and save this land from war and destruction? Everything I've done so far is for that and that alone. You three have been a threat to that since the beginning and I can't allow that to happen. Why do you think this is happening to begin with? If you had simply accepted that the crusade was a necessary evil then we would not have needed to accuse you of the things we have. Fortunately your recent actions have made it rather easy for the public to believe anything we were to say about you, no matter it's validity. You haven't exactly given the public reasons not to believe our lies."

A-ah! There it was! Okay, how do I… The maid said I just… Stupid thing! Maybe I should have left the Maid write the instructions on my hand like she suggested.

"Just what are you doing?" the Pope asks, seemingly genuinely confused.

"I'll be with you in a moment," I tell him, tapping this stupid thing far harder then I probably should. Founder, how does this stupid thing even work? Just what magic did they poor into it? Was it this one? No I think… Oh, just how many stupid icons does she have! I got it!

"I got it!" I declare, finally getting to the page I had intended to. "So if I just push this, then it should…"

I tap the Maid's keepsake once again, and suddenly the Pope's previous statements start emanating from the mysterious little tablet. Just how does it do that? I mean, there are some magical artifacts you can buy that make a record of what's being told to them, but it only works if you speak directly to it and even then it only makes a written record. How does this thing manage to record someone's voice, no matter how indistinct? I know Josh has said that magic doesn't exist in his world, but I'm not that certain. How else could something like this exist?

"Wh-what is this?" he asks. "What kind of spell-"

"Apparently it's not a spell," I tell him. "It's something from Josh and Emily's world that allows them to record voices and listen to them again at any time they want. It'd be better if it wasn't such a stupid device and so stupidly difficult to operate, but I didn't make it."

The Pope seems surprised, but regains his composure.

"Ah, I see. You were hoping to get me to slip up and admit that everything has been a lie to push my own agenda, then use that evidence to turn the populace against me, is that it?" he asks. "A clever plan. If only the general populace would believe that the evidence is actual evidence and not the machinations of assassins trying to turn the populace against their target. After all, have not already proven today that you are willing to attack me in broad daylight during a public event?"

"Ah, see, that's actually the easy part," I tell him, allowing myself a smile. "That was Josette's idea actually. We needed to get word out that you're not exactly the nicest Pope Romalia has ever had. To do this, we needed to provide evidence about your actual plot. The problem is that we had to make sure that there was no way anyone would ever doubt that it was legitimate evidence. Josette's plan followed a few key points. Point one: Get word out that there existed an object that could perfectly record the words straight from anyone's mouth. Point two: Convince the populace that not only did such an object exist, it was in possession of the most powerful information broker in Halkegnia. It would be simple for people to believe that someone like the Shadow Broker had access to an object like that, because it makes sense. Point three: convince the world that Emily is the Shadow Broker. This way they'll believe that we have access to that particular object. As such, Emily has been going around for a few days by now picking people's brains for opinions on the current state of affairs and recording them in order to get that word out. Now, if Emily were to go around with this information and start spreading it around, then it certainly wouldn't be hard to imagine what would happen, would it?"

"Y-you three… you planned that far ahead?" he asks.

"No, only Josette," I explain. "I think it's a little overly complicated, but I'm still impressed with the plan she thought up. I certainly couldn't have thought it up. Or I could have, but didn't. Not sure. Doesn't really matter, I suppose. You lose either way."

"There is one flaw in your plan though," the Pope says. "If you were to perhaps defect to our side and destroy that object then wouldn't the plan fall apart?"

His staff starts glowing with a golden light which… doesn't seem to do anything. At all. What an anticlimax.

"It wasn't effective?" the Pope wonders. "Ah, I see now. How unfortunate. It appears that those with the blood of Those Who Came Before seem to be immune. The only people I've trouble controlling after all are you and your familiar."

"You tried controlling Josh?" I ask.

"Long ago, back when you had first arrived," he tells me. "Remember the meal we shared where I told you my plans? Your familiar was rather adamant in his refusal, I recall."

"You tried to make Josh agree with you?"

"Not in a way that would seem obvious," he says. "After everything he said it would be suspicious if he simply agreed to whatever I said, would it not? I simply intended to influence him slightly so he wouldn't be a problem. However it failed, and all I could do was wonder why. How gratifying to finally have an answer. Now I know a more hands-on approach will be necessary."

The Pope taps his staff against the ground and several illusions appear around him, all armed. Oh, this could be tricky.

"Shall we begin?" he asks.

***Josh POV***

"I'm almost disapointed!" Julio calls, the Apple shining brightly. "I'd have hoped for a better performance then this!"

"Well excuse me for having to deal with all these freaking illusions!" I call out, slashing through another imaginary Julio. "Why don't you fight me like a man you wuss!"

"Alas, that's beneath me," Julio laments. "And this is far more entertaining, is it not?"

"For you maybe, you bastard!" I call back. I slash at an incoming illusion with one sword, and stab another through the throat with the other.

"Partner, this'd be a lot easier if you just used me!" Derflinger says from his sheathe. "Why do you even need two swords?"

"Not the time buddy," I tell him. "We'll talk later, okay?"

For now, I have to think of a way to separate Julio and the Apple, otherwise this will just never end and that's just annoying. The illusions aren't a problem themselves, they die easily but they just keep showing up and that is aggravating. However, Julio is a damn good swordsman so I can't just charge him and take him out that way. He'll stab me again. I don't want to get stabbed. So what I need is-

A guard approaches me and swings his sword, so I lean back to avoid it and carve an "X" right across his chest, causing him to disappear.

Alright, so what I need to do is-

Two guards approach so slash one's knees and stab the other through the "heart."

So what I need to do is-

Three guards attack so I deal with them and WILL YOU STOP INTERRUPTING ME YOU ASSHOLE! I reverse the grip on my sword and throw it at Julio hilt first. He seems briefly surprised, which appears to cause some form of hesitation because the sword hits him square in the stomach, causing him to double over. I follow up by rushing towards him, spinning around and delivering two roundhouse kicks directly to his face. He hits the ground, dropping the apple in the process. He pulls himself to his feet quickly enough and draws his sword.

"Very well," he says. "It appears that a proper rematch is in order. Are you prepared?"

"… Maybe? I dunno, I didn't exactly have enough time to come up with some witty one liners to use."

"I doubt that will mater much. Prepare yourself," he says.

Julio charges at me and swings, which I block. I decide to play this phase of the battle defensively, it gives me more time to think. Why didn't Julio dodge the sword? He's clearly capable of it, and he's been able to dodge or deflect everything else I've thrown at him, so why did that work? Do I need to throw more sword at him? I've only got this one I'm using and Derflinger, so let's not try that.

"Is this the best you can do?" Julio asks. "You're not even trying! At least attempt to attack."

"Fine, fine you jackass."

I swing at him, which he blocks, unsurprisingly. He kicks me in the stomach, and swings again which I narrowly manage to step back and avoid. This gives Julio the opportunity to step forward and send the hilt of his sword square into my forehead, knocking me flat on my back. That hurt, I'll say that.

"I suppose that was your payback for the hilt-to-stomach thing?" I ask him from my spot on the floor.

"Perhaps," he says smugly. "I was hoping you would have realized by now that you can't beat me. I've seen far more battle then you could ever hope, and have infinitely more experience. Every move you make, I can think of twenty different ways of dealing with it."

…

"Ooooooh, I get it now," I say.

"You finally realize that resistance is futile?" Julio asks, looking smugger then usual.

"Heh? No!" I say, pulling myself to my feet. "See, taking that into consideration, there's something that's been bugging me. You've shrugged off every attack of mine by blocking or dodging or whatever so it's been ineffective for one reason or another. That's why it's been bugging me that I've been able to land two strike on you, the bullet from last battle and the sword hilt right now. If you're as omniscient as you say, then why did those work? Thank you for helping me figure it out!"

"Figure, what out, exactly?" Julio asks.

I respond by kicking him in the balls, an attack that lands just as intended. I follow that up by punching him in the face, which sends him stumbling back.

"It's simple," I tell him. "People like you operate on a flowchart, so the second something goes off the chart, you have no idea what to do with yourself. You can't exactly predict what I'm going to do if it's unpredictable, now can you?"

"Is that your big revelation?" Julio asks. "Hardly seems like it'll be enough to win against someone like me."

I respond by dashing forward, moving to swing my sword. Julio responds by attempting to block, only for me to stop my swing and stamp down on his foot as hard as I can. I quickly spin around and smack him across the face with the flat of my sword. He reels back, and wipes the blood off of his cheek.

"Point for me?" I ask. "Point for me."

"Hmph, it seems you aren't as insignificant a threat as previously assumed," Julio says. "Fine. If I must take this seriously, then I shall."

Julio adopts an actual offensive stance and readies himself for round two. I respond by tossing my sword at him, which he nonchalantly dodges, clearly having seen that trick before. So obviously there's a second part that involve me following closely behind the sword and kick Julio right in the spine. What an idiot. No, not him, me. I let this guy kick my ass? I'm embarrassed.

"Wow, you really suck." I tell Julio as I draw Derflinger.

He responds by going into a bit of a frenzy, attacking fast, but smart. He's not wildly swinging, he knows exactly where he's aiming, but he's doing it quickly enough that I can't get an opening to do anything. What an ass. I catch his sword with Derflinger, then push him away to create some space. I point my left hidden blade at him and he freezes up.

"BANG!"

Julio flinches, but nothing happens. Dude, I haven't had a chance to get ammo for this thing in forever. I mean, I got some pretty decent use during the flashback things, but that was pretty much solely because my ammo got refilled after each memory segment and I wasn't firing actual ammo. Either way, it makes for a good diversion as I dive for the Apple. I grip it firmly, rise up and present my victory before the prosecution.

"I see," Julio says. "So this is how it ends. With me at your mercy. Very well. Go ahead and use the Apple. You won this round."

Wait… I just remembered that I never cleaned up that fruit punch I spilled at home. Ah _shit_ that's going to dry up and get all sticky, and then ants are going to start crawling everywhere and Mom's going to get pissed. Damn everything! I knew I should have cleaned it up _before_ putting the pizza in the oven. Nooooo, I had to assign it to the "handle it later" category of my mind and go rest in my room. Damn it, I'm an idiot!

"Well? Do it already!" Julio yells at me.

"Shut up, I'm a little busy with something!" I yell at him. An illusion guard appears and kicks Julio to the ground where he is then pinned to the ground by several illusions swords on either side of his wrists and ankles. Doesn't seem like he'll be moving anytime soon. If anything, he find that more amusing then anything.

"I see," he says. "The perfect opportunity and means, and you couldn't even do that. How disappointing."

"Mercy is the mark of a great man," I reply, saying the only thing that came to mind in response. My follow up action is to relieve some stress by kicking Julio in the side. "Guess I'm only good." I kick him twice more for good measure. "I'm alright." … three more kicks just in case. "I'm an asshole, sue me."

I leave Julio there on the floor writhing in pain and join Louise in her plight against the Pope. I say that, but it's really just him creating illusion guards to send against her and she dispels them. A pretty crappy fight to be honest. I interrupt it by creating a few guards of my own who take out the Pope's illusions before disappearing themselves.

"Sorry to interrupt that riveting scene, but I thought we should start wrapping this up," I say.

"Ah," the Pope says. "Dealt with Julio, have you? How impressive."

Wasn't that hard. Dude was weak once you figure out the weakness. What a wuss.

"Okay so, two on one, is it?" I ask, flipping the apple from hand to hand.

"Make it four!"

Oh, Catherine and Emily have joined the party.

"Catherine?" the Pope asks. "What a surprise to see you betraying me."

"Just answer me this," Catherine asks. "Are you really doing what they're saying you're doing? Are you really trying to convict and execute innocent people solely for the sake of committing genocide against the elves?"

"I hardly expected someone like you to be so easily swayed by words," the Pope chuckles. "Though I suppose that it's useless to keep anything hidden anymore. Yes, at no point have they tried to actually kill me. That would have made things far easier if they had, but alas it seems that was not in the cards."

"I see," Catherine says. "Sir, I am placing you under arrest for treason against Romalia and for plotting the slaughter of countless innocents."

"And you think you four will be able to apprehend me?" he asks. "Me, the one could turn all of this city against you with a thought? The wielder of the ancient Void magic, as passed down from the Founder himself?"

I smirk. I raise my hand up, and clench my fist. The Pope seems confused, though he really shouldn't be. After all, I feel like he should have noticed someone that was missing. On my mark, Josette appears right behind him and puts the Founder's Round Mirror right up to his back. The mirror starts shining with a brilliant purple light that slowly envelops the Pope before dying down. The Pope falls to his knees, dropping his staff as well.

"Wh… What?" he asks.

"Feeling weak?" I ask.

"You should, considering we just stole your magic," Emily says, putting a hand on her hip.

"I'm sure it can't feel that good, having your world slowly crumble around you like that," Louise says.

"My… Magic?" the Pope asks. "The mirror!"

"Yeah, in a way it was lucky that you got the Apple when you did," I tell him.

"You wouldn't have paid the mirror any mind when you finally had both Pieces of Eden," Josette says, walking the mirror over to Louise. "This allowed us to sneak away with our trump card intact. I used that term properly, right?"

"You did fine," I tell her, giving her a pat on the head. She blushes intensely, but manages to get it under control and hand the mirror to it's intended target, Louise.

"Thank you Josette," Louise says, looking at the mirror. Another purple light appears, this time enveloping Louise. It dies down, and Louise shakes the mirror a little. "Is that it? Seems like a rather simple artifact to use."

"It was meant to be used by everyone in his army, remember?" Emily says.

"Now then," I say as I walk over to the Pope and pick up his Staff. "You about ready to surrender?"

He looks at our group, taking time to look each of us in the eye. He laughs.

"Very well," he says. "I surrender. Catherine, you may do with me as you wish."

Catherine nods and walks behind the pope. She quickly waves her wand and the Pope's hands are bound by earth.

"Whew. Alright, good job everyone, take five. We won, let's call it a day," I tell everyone.

***Author Notes***

Uncreative: Okay, so it turns out that "two chapters" meant one chapter and an epilogue. The epilogue is next chapter, so we're about done here!

Jocelyn: I didn't think you'd manage it, but you did. Congrats.

Uncreative: And so, let's talk about this chapter. Everything happened, we won, the end.

Jocelyn: That's it?

Uncreative: That's it. I don't really have much to say about it. I mean, I guess I wish that I could have figured out some more stuff to do with everyone else, but other then that I'm pretty content with this chapter.

Jocelyn: Can't argue with that I suppose. Alright, so next chapter is the final chapter.

Uncreative: Yep, next up is the epilogue where we're finally finished! See you then everyone.

Jocelyn: See you later!


	32. Chapter 30

**Final Chapter: See you, Space Cowboy**

Of course I'm nowhere near awesome enough to feel good about using that phrase myself, but oh well. Anyway, it's been a few hours since we've finished our run in with the Pope and got that set up. Catherine hauled him away, brining Julio in as well as an accomplice. Emily spent a few of those hours going around, spreading the truth about what the Pope wanted to do and clearing our names. Some people didn't believe such a thing was possible, but since word had gotten around, they were eventually assured that it was trustworthy information. The rest of the group were busy doing damage control, so it was just Louise, Emily Josette and I who were currently hanging out around the safe house.

"Whew, glad that's all over," I say, kicking back in my comfy chair. "We successfully managed to get the Pope arrested, and an excommunication probably isn't that far off. I look forward to doing that again when we get home."

"Let's not," Louise asks me. "If we're going to do this thing where we go to your world, I'd rather we do it without the intent of stirring up more trouble."

I shrug. I dunno. Knowing us we probably won't have that hard a time finding some kind of crisis. I give us a week. No, two weeks. Give a little leeway there.

"So what's going to happen to Julio?" Emily asks. "I know he got arrested, but I doubt he'll get the same punishments as the Pope, considering he's an accomplice and not much else."

"He'll be staying in jail to think about what he's done for a long time," Josette says. "I'll be visiting him everyday to make sure that goes smoothly. Don't worry about things over here while you're gone. I'll take care of it somehow. I'm a void mage too, right? It's my duty to Halkegnia to do at least that much."

"Alright, and what about the Pieces of Eden?" Louise asks. "We can't just leave them alone. What are we going to do, take them to Josh and Emily's world and hope no one there gets a hold of them?"

"Oh! That's what I meant to do!" I say, getting up and dusting off my pants. "Anyone wanna come with? Gonna be a hell of a fireworks show."

I scoop up the Staff and Apple leaning up against the wall, pick up my last toy and head outside. The other three follow right behind me. I hope they enjoy the show. I know I will. Once outside I plant the staff in the ground and put the Apple right next to it. I say a silent farewell to Minerva. Destroying the Apple will probably kill her too. I'll miss her, but I think she'd prefer to go out in a blaze of glory instead of being used by a bunch of assholes to kill the elves. Once the Pieces of Eden are planted properly, I take a few steps back. Then several more. Then a whooooooooole lot more.

"You might want to back up a bit more," I warn the three who are behind me. "This might cause a bit of a boom."

That said, I lift up the Cain, noting just how heavy it is and point the miniature particle accelerator at the ancient alien tech.

"A-are you sure this will destroy them?" Josette asks as she cowers behind Emily.

"If this won't then nothing will and we'll have to figure something else out," I say, adjust my aim slightly. "Say goodbye everyone."

"Goodbye."

…

"Josette, that wasn't an actual thing," Louise says.

"A-Ah! I-it wasn't?"

"Click!"

***BOOOOOOOOOOOOM***

Once the dust clears, and Emily stops yelling at me about causing a nuclear fallout in Halkegnia, we inspect the Pieces of Eden to see what kind of damage we did. Or we would have if we could have found them. As it was, it seems like there just wasn't anything left of them. Like, nothing. My god, they just aren't here anymore.

"… I think we did it," I say.

"No kidding," Emily says. "Probably alerted the whole city with that, but we certainly took care of it."

"So... So it's over, right?" Josette asks. "Completely? No loose ends left?"

"I think we finished up everything," Louise tells her.

"Well, a few things, maybe," I say. "Not gonna make the move yet, we still need to grab a few things from here and say goodbye to everyone, but I wouldn't mind visiting Home for a bit, assuage all fears and all that."

"Ah, a quick visit home?" Emily says while nodding. "I can respect that. Think you can pull it off Louise?"

"Um... Maybe?" She doesn't sound so sure. "I mean, I'm sure I can, it's just a problem of whether or not it'll work. It'll be my first time trying something like that, after all."

"I'm sure you'll do fine," Josette assure her.

"Thank you. So, do I just go for it?" Louise asks. "If we're going to be coming right back for a visit, then why wait?"

"Do it," I say. "I'd like to go home."

"Okay, here it goes," Louise says, pulling her wand out. She begins the chant and starts waving her wand around. When she finishes, she points her wand at the ground in front of her, and a bright light shines forth. Unlike other examples of this light, this one didn't fade and stayed, taking the shape of an oval. A rather see through oval, but a light oval nonetheless.

"Did I do it?" Louise asks, looking at the oval.

Looking at the oval, I certainly see some interesting buildings. Oh New York, how I've missed you. Should probably see if Desmond's still working at that bar. Dude makes a damn good fruit punch. Maybe I can finally score the actual recipe from him.

"Well, looks good to me," I say. I grab Louise and Emily by the hand and look to both of them. "Alright, we're ready to go?"

"Ready," Emily says.

"Ready as I'll ever be," Louise says.

"We'll be back Josette," I call out over my shoulder.

"Have fun you three," she says, smiling brightly as waves goodbye.

The three of us mentally prepare ourselves, and take our first few steps through the portal. Once through, it closes behind us, leaving us on our own.

"Wh-what's that awful smell?" Louise says, covering her nose with her hands.

"Ah, I missed the smell of modernization," Emily says, taking a deep breath of the pollution.

"I-Is that what it is?" Louise asks. "Not what I expected."

"Well, we aim to confound you expectations," I tell Louise. "As such, allow me to be the first to say 'Welcome to Earth.'"

***Author Conclusion***

Uncreative: And so, everyone's happy, they're on Earth and can go back at their leisure, everything's fine.

Jocelyn: Short epilogue. I suppose there wasn't much for us to cover though. Big bro got back home and everything's fine and dandy.

Uncreative: More importantly, I got this story finished by the end of March, just like I said I would. I didn't think I'd make it, but I did. Could I have stuck the ending a bit better? Probably. All things considered though, I'm happy with how this turned out. I'm just glad it's over and we can move on to other stories.

Jocelyn: Like mine! Or the sequel. When's the sequel?

Uncreative: Probably never happening. I don't see the point of a sequel, and I don't want to spend another two years floundering about like I did with this story. I liked writing this story, I did. I didn't like not knowing what I was doing for 85 percent of it. Besides, I've got far too many other stories to get to before the thought of a sequel even begins to cross my mind.

Jocelyn: Fair enough. Any final thoughts on this before we pack up and head out?

Uncreative: My biggest regret is that I wasn't able to do more with side characters. I would have liked too, I like them a lot, but I just couldn't think of much to do. Maybe next time. Anyway, I'd like to extend a hearty "THANK YOU" to everyone who read this, even if all you did was read the first sentence of the first chapter then skip to the epilogue to see what happened.

Jocelyn: Sincerely, thank you for reading.

Uncreative: Thank you everyone for your support, we'll see you next time. This is The Uncreative, signing off.

Jocelyn: Sayonara everybody!

Uncreative: We're done here.


End file.
